A Thought Process That Will Completely Change the Way You Read Everything
We don’t just learn about other people when we read, we learn about ourselves; understanding the ramifications of this can transform your life
When you read an article or read a book or watch a video or listen to a podcast or whatever, the common consensus is it tells us something that the creator wants us to know, and at the same time, it tells us something about the creator. Because of this, the common consensus is that when we engage with content, we learn what the content creator has taught us as well as something about the content creator.
This is of course stating the obvious. However, an often missed factor is that we also learn something else. We learn about ourselves. Arguably, when we interact with content, we learn more about ourselves than we do about the content creator and what they are sharing with us.
For example, when we read something how we react to what we read, and how we interpret what we read, tells us profound realities about ourselves.
It tells us whether we are interested in what the writer is writing about, whether we understand what they are writing about, whether we agree with what they are writing about.
It tells us about our past i.e. by how we relate to what has been written. It tells us about our frustrations i.e. by whether we get angry by what has been written due to it perhaps telling us something we don’t want to hear. It tells us about our biases, our fears.
Most importantly, it tells us about our ability to listen, and about our ability — and willingness — to see things from the perspectives of other people.
Understanding this reality can profoundly change your life for the better by helping you become a more rounded and switched on person. The best example I can give of this is from a friend of mine. He sent a video to me at the end of 2021.
The title of the video was along the lines of: Things Women Need to Know about Men. He asked me to watch it and let me know what I think of it and whether I agreed.
I watched it and it basically said along the lines of: men want somebody who listens to them, respects them, shows them affection, desires to look after them, and more importantly, they want somebody willing to learn how they communicate.
I replied that it was a good watch and that the creator clearly knew her stuff. He agreed, he then sent a screen grab of a message his wife had sent him after he had sent her the video. To give a little context, they had been having marital problems and both argued that neither listened. He sent her this video and said this is what men want from women.
The screen grab showing her response to that was along the lines of a message that read: So you want a lapdog who keeps her mouth shut, has no personality and does everything you want. She then went on an epic rant about how the video was a perfect example of what women were fighting against.
Flabbergasted at this I watched the video again, but I was completely unable to see where she was getting this from. My friend then sent me a video that she had sent him in response.
He had a real problem with this video, he told me it was a perfect example of what the problem with women was in the modern world. He said he had told her how he would never be her lapdog, and that men were men and she needed to let him be a man.
I watched the video expecting it to be some example of extremist feminism, but no, it was near enough the same as the video he had sent her, but whereas the one he had sent her had been from the male perspective, this one was from the female perspective.
It said along the lines of: women want somebody who listens to them, respects them, shows them affection, desires to look after them, and more importantly, they want somebody willing to learn how they communicate.
I highlighted to him that it was a decent video and that the guy clearly knew his stuff, I told him I didn’t see the problem, it was pretty much the same as the video he had sent his wife except from the female perspective.
He appeared shocked that I said this, but kind of begrudgingly acknowledged that I was “sort of” right. We then never talked of the matter again until about six months later.
His wife and he had been attending marriage counselling, their therapist had concluded that the problem was not that they were not listening to each other per se, it was that both of them were failing to see things from the other person’s perspective.
He told me that their therapist had told them that every time one of them said anything, about anything, rather than hearing what had been said, they twisted the words and made it about themselves.
He said their therapist told them that they were basically listening to each other but not hearing each other. He then basically told them, in that way that therapists do, that they were two perfect examples of people making everything about themselves without ever considering that it may not be about them.
After my friend told me about this, it made me think about those videos and how when his wife had watched the video from the male perspective, she had seen it as a personal attack on herself. So, she had taken something that was not about her and her needs, but about him and his needs, and had twisted it into a personal attack on herself.
So, rather than accepting it was about him and thus trying to see it from his perspective, she had made it about her. When watching the video she had sent him, he had done the same, he had twisted it into a personal attack on himself and thus had made it all about him.
That means that when watching those videos, their reactions to those videos had told them what their problem was. That they were not able to see things from each other’s perspectives because both were twisting everything to be about themselves.
This reality made me realise just how much we can learn from our responses to interacting with content, and not just with content, our responses to conversations with people.
Literally, simply asking yourself, what does my reaction to this tell me about me, can reveal so much about who you are, especially in regard to how good you are at listening, and how good you are at seeing things from the perspective of others.
This is why if you wish to get the most from articles, videos, books, if you wish to get the most from a conversation with a person, if you wish to get the most from anything, always consider this one question. What does my reaction to interacting with this tell me about me?
It’s amazing how when you start doing this, the way you see the world, yourself, other people, changes for the better.
That’s all from me, thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, you may also enjoy the following:
Three Statements to Say to Yourself that Can Change Your Life
Consumer Activism Is Screwing Up Society and Society Needs to Fight Back
Three Brilliant Writing Techniques to Improve Your Life and Relationships
To learn more about me see this link, to support me click the link below:
