Communication: Hype or Not?

Communication is hard in any relationship without all the underlying interpretations and issues. The best thing to do is try to figure out how you and the other person need communicate. My mother and I are a good example of a relationship where communication is difficult. It has always been hard, we fight about everything. At times I feel like she just doesn’t want to get along with anyone. We have tried for years to find a way and finally last year I had to tell her that I was out of energy and couldn’t try anymore. She has gotten older and more forgetful and more angry because she forgets. She called me a few months ago and apologized for being so hard on me all the time and wanted to repair the relationship. We had a good talk and now she back to her old ways. I try to realize she is old and that it won’t change and I hang onto the fact that at one point she did try hard to communicate with me. That to me far out weighs the other things she has done to me in my life. Communication for us is a choice, we choose to move past the fact that we don’t always understand the other one and focus on the having each other in our lives. We accept what we have. You need to decide for yourself if it is worth it to accept what you have or change it.

There are so many different levels and types of communication that anyone could sit here and write for hours and try to help you figure out what you need, but then again, everyone is different. All the writing, all the advice and all the information in the world may not even pertain to you. You need to absorb everything that you hear and then decide for yourself what is going to work. I tell my kids all the time that every second of your life is a new one, no one has ever lived that one before, so no one can predict what to do or even have enough knowledge to be perfect at it. You just have to keep living and learning. That is what you need to do with communication. Find every tool you can and decide which ones will work for you and realize that just because if worked today, doesn’t mean it will work tomorrow. Keep living, growing and learning and as long as you do that you might make mistakes but at least you are trying. One of my favorite sayings is, “People don’t fall, they are just stumbling to who they were meant to be.” That is truly what communication is, you will stumble but you need to get back up and try again.

So, the question of the day, communication: hype or not? What do you think? The fact that your reading this means you are searching for the same answer.