In building Nova Earth, we’re going to have predictable disagreements. Some of them drain energy significantly and are unnecessary.
One is our disagreements over “what’s the truth here?”
Supposing I were to say to you that the wait lines at the bank today were outrageous. A half hour wait with only six customers ahead of me and three tellers, sometimes four.
And supposing you were to say to me, the wait line wasn’t that long. Besides there were sometimes two tellers there instead of three or four, and anyways some tellers were doing wire transfers and other complicated matters.
We’d probably end up pulling each other’s hair out.
The listener has responded with what they conceive to be the true picture of what occurred.
But what they’ve failed to do is to get that what the speaker said is their truth, what is true for them in that moment, and that that truth has not been heard and acknowledged.
How many fights occur because the listener does not get that the speaker wants their truth to be heard and acknowledged, however we may feel about it? Instead what happens is that the two dispute what may be true. They end up presenting two versions of the truth, neither of which may prove to be totally correct.
And no one knows why so much resentment has been generated. The listener wonders why the speaker is so hot under the collar? Aren’t they interested in the truth?
This is one predictable fight that I see happening around me with regularity. It’s one that could be left at the door, so to speak, if we’d simply hear and acknowledge another’s truth as their truth. We don’t have to agree with it.
When we’re building Nova Earth, we may need protocols for getting along. And hearing and acknowledging the truth of another needs to be right up there at the top of them.