Miscommunication

A lack of communication seems to be behind many of the world's problems.

Take all the mess between many of the Middle East countries and the U.S. over the past week-plus. When an American, via free speech, puts out something on You Tube, people in other countries can easily suffer from miscommunication, as they think that such a video must surely speak for the whole country, as it would in their own. And when a handful of people riot against the U.S., Americans can easily suffer from miscommunication, as they think such actions must surely speak for the whole country, as well as that country's government.

In our day and age of overly-biased, opinionated, entertainment-based news stories, we take a small piece to represent an entire whole. Fareed Zakaria says it well:

http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/14/fareeds-take-vivid-protest-images-do-not-tell-whole-story/?hpt=hp_t1

Miscommunication seems to stem so many problems. When there is a problem or a rift between sports figures or athletes and coaches, it almost always has to do with one side not understanding or hearing the the others side correctly. I haven't even begun to dig into the Tom Coughlin/Greg Schiano mess; but I feel sure there is a lack of communication somewhere in the mix.

Stopping to take a second to see what the other person/side is saying is what we need to do in so many situations. If we can get beyond that and try to put ourselves in the other person's/side's shoes, to gain some perspective, we can help ourselves and others from being involved in so many fights, squabbles, hurt feelings, and misunderstandings.