You’ve been expecting a response from someone via electronic messaging and it’s been a day or two. Finally you see them message back but are afraid to read what they have said, fearing that it’s something you didn’t want to hear or rather read. Eventually, you settle your nerves and built-up anticipation and read it. The message was short. Very brief and in broken sentences. Your heart or something around your chest area feels heavy, I guess your “heart sank”. The response was not what you had expected. Of course it wasn’t so much they didn’t say what you expected them to say but that you totally didn’t see it coming. What caused them to respond in such a way?
Don’t tell me that from what you read, my message sounds like “attitude” and I know you meant attitude in a negative sense. Yes, choice of words and the use of punctuation can sometimes very persuasively set the tone and reveal one’s “attitude” at the time of typing the message. But there are many other factors that must be considered, for instance, the context. Why does it sound like attitude to you? Because you’re reading it with that “attitude”. Why are you reading it with that attitude? Perhaps you know why I MIGHT have said it with that attitude that you assumed I had. Or maybe because you’re not in a good mood and it’s reflected in how you read and interpreted what I typed out.
I’ve done that myself far too many times in the past where I would read a response and assume it’s said with attitude. Maybe it was and maybe it wasn’t. But I got upset over it because I’m more likely to read those responses with a negative attitude. I can’t say that I don’t do that anymore, but I’m trying to change my own attitude and how I perceive things said by other people, particularly through written or typed out text.
Words that you read are just words until YOU put some meaning to it.
4 months agotheme by: heloísa teixeira
