Have you ever had anybody call you to talk about a situation they had, and suddenly they start asking questions if what they did is right or wrong, and they expect you to answer with what they want to hear? A friend of mine had come over a few weeks ago with a situation where she would have an unfortunate result since the beginning but didn’t want to take responsibility for her actions and wanted to get validation by telling me her side of the story. However, when I started to ask her questions to understand what happened and not only what she wanted to tell me, the whole story changed. I was in awe of how much she had missed out on telling me to avoid taking responsibility or simply looking like a victim and looking for the consolation she wanted to get from me. Honestly, I have reached the point where I will be bluntly honest if someone asks my opinion regarding a certain topic. In this case, I would not fall for her story, and I was going to tell my friend my point of view.
The other day, when I was thinking of the conversation, I realized that people have two ways of reaching out. And as you might have heard in the past: “when somebody wants help, they will ask for help.” One way of reaching out to people is only having your story taken into consideration and asking specific questions to get the validation you need and the certainty that you did the right thing. Not only do we seem quite intense with those questions, because they seem repetitive and as if we are looking for the approval of others, but we also assume that the people closest to us will agree to everything it is that we say or do. On the other hand, we can reach out to someone to ask for their opinion and feedback and use the answer and opinion to learn from that situation instead of taking it personally because we did not give the answer they wanted to hear.
This can be a sensitive topic for many because the way we respond to the other person will also determine how we want to get the response in return whenever we ask a question like that. Nonetheless, there are moments where we can use white lies, those comments that we say to not harm the other person or the diplomatic response as my Opa would say - like the way a person is dressed. These circumstances will not be the end-all-be-all because an unnecessary harmful comment is not required. In any scenario, what it is that I have realized, is that unless somebody asks for my honest opinion, I will not give it. Because I have been told, by my mom specifically, I can be brutally honest, even if I talk from experience.
So, next time you are going to ask a question for an opinion of another person, take into consideration if you want their honest opinion or if you simply want the validation to know if you did the right thing.
Z.
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