“Dark yellow? Orange?” Words matter. Images in the mind are directly connected with them. That makes them so powerful. And so difficult to control:
Because that’s what can happen: People talk apparently about the same thing but it is only partly the same – as in ‘dark yellow’ or ‘orange’. You cannot always know what others understand of your words, your speech, or your message.
Equally difficult can be to really know what others might mean, even though you seem to be using the same words. Why that happens? Because we all grow up and make experiences in certain cultures and surroundings.
That way the associations, the images, that crop up in our individual minds can be different – even if slightly.
At times they can make understanding each other challenging, at least.
Of course, there’s the situation that people are well-meaning but make more of their own skills or their expertise than is actually true. And others even expect it from them. In interviews for job applications, for example.
When you then meet the exception from the rule, it can make it even more challenging and also interesting: To expect someone to be ‘telling tall tales’ and then find out that they hadn’t…