in life, we are given many gifts from god that no one else can give: our eyes, our ears, our mouths, our minds, our limbs, and the ability to feel and express emotions. since birth, we have been growing and learning new things about the world we exist within and what exists within the world. i believe that everything around us affects how we grow: the people around us, the environment, and the way our parents raise us. we all learn to adapt to our certain habitats since not everyone grows up in the same place with the same values that others have.
my mother told me that when i was very young, and as i was her first child ever, she worked hard to teach me and care for me so that i may grow up intelligent and strong. she said that it was difficult to understand what i wanted since all i could do was cry and mumble stuff, so she had her mother come help her take good care of me.
as i was growing up, i was able to speak english and arabic, i was able to reason with my siblings, and i was able to tell my mum whether i was hungry, sad, angry, disgusted, etc. if i were sad, she’d hug me and tell me she loves me – and it’s the warmest feeling yet. if i were angry, she’d ask me what was wrong and try and help me resolve my problems. however, reaching my adolescent years, i became more and more disconnected from my mother as i started to think more on what i wanted to do in the future instead of thinking of just being with her, there and then.
“she was a grumpy child,” my mother would say. i tended not to smile at all, cross my arms, and complain about things that bother me. the only thing that could lift my spirits or get me hyped was the old-school cartoon network shows or reading fairy tales. i learned so much from just watching, reading, and observing the emotions and reactions of the characters in the shows and stories–that i grew to speak and act more and more like them. my actions started becoming a manifestation of my emotions as i started to hit puberty.
i know it’s hard to understand youth and their feelings since we are very complex and tend not to explain the main point and instead, say, evade it by explaining a something sort of like a riddle and expecting others to understand what we mean by it. we are misunderstood because we don’t really know how to express ourselves well. information can be shared in any form, and we must all be educated on how to express ourselves using the languages we have learned ever since our births. therefore, it is a must for all of us, as a society, to help each other in trying to understand each other, not scolding what you cannot understand, by means of educating us the better ways of expressing ourselves. there is such a thing as “miscommunication,” and because of this, we might interpret things differently from what others interpret.
to avoid miscommunication, we must educate ourselves on how to explain things thoroughly and learn to listen and accept each others’ own perspectives or interpretations, for they might also give you a glimpse of how they think, which could improve your relationship. you can teach yourself to become a good listener which could also make others listen to you completely as well. sometimes, people tend to passively listen to you because you haven’t shown them the attention they need to feel appreciated. in most miscommunication situations, it becomes an argument or a problem. i may learn to express myself better by using clear words and relating them to other situations that may give a clearer thought to those who are listening, i may also listen to them to understand how they think, and correct them gently for what they may have mistaken due to miscommunication.
stvrdust 