3 minutes read
Imma is a MMA fanatic, at exactly 2am every Sunday morning, his alarm wakes him up reminding him that a UFC event is on. This particular Sunday morning, his eyes were full of excitement and he couldn’t sleep, he was waiting to see the much anticipated UFC 218 headlined by Holloway v Aldo and co-headlined by Ngannou v Overeem. After all the stress of finding a link online where he could stream the fight, his babe walks into the room. Just at the moment when Ngannou is about to knock Overeem into another dimension, she sits on his thighs facing him. Imma’s adrenaline was so high, disappointed he missed such a stunning knock out, he raised his voice, “why do you always like disturbing me, through out the whole day you could not come, it’s now when I am watching UFC you are coming”. Marvis kissed her teeth and said sorry oh, and then walked out of the room.
Communication is very important in any form of relationship, it is clear that Marvis just required the attention of her man, she wanted to know that she was more important than UFC. He failed to show this, and his failure was not because UFC was actually more important than her, it was that he did not understand what she wanted from him at that moment. Imagine if he gave her the attention she wanted, and then proceeded to watch a replay of the knock out, both parties would have ended up getting the satisfaction they both wanted.
Marvis may have made an assumption that Imma should have known what she wanted, but, sometimes, it is just easy and necessary to expressly state what you want.
There is a narrative that emotions need to be controlled and it is better not to communicate how you feel about a person’s actions. This is exactly what Marvis did, she left the room without communicating her feelings to Imma. You can’t fault Marvis for doing this, because we are all creatures of habit. It is very likely that she grew up in an environment where communicating feelings was never practiced or it was seen as weakness and she had unconsciously formed a habit of this.
Communication does not just apply to personal relationships, it also applies to every form of relationship we create in our day-to-day lives. It is always better to communicate with people and tell them exactly how you feel about an issue, so you do not leave any room for an assumption or mis-interpretation.
Cast your mind back to situations where you have failed to communicate your feelings to a certain someone and that person has made a wrong assumption because of your poor communication skills. It sucks right?
I challenge you all, to try and build the habit of communicating better with people. Pick up your phone and call people who you are not speaking your mind to, it may be a parent, your partner, your ex or even your boss. Saying what is in your mind has the power of changing a problematic situation into a problem-solving situation.
Mindsmash 