Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Conversations

Have you ever noticed how the person who speaks second in a conversation controls the direction of the conversation?  So you say, "Good morning, how are you?" and the other person either says, "Great I am having the best time," or "Oh my gosh, did I tell you about how bad ........is."  From there the conversation either goes in a positive direction or you respond about how bad your day, week or month is. 

There is almost a competition to have something better or worse to say depending on the other persons comments.  I have a friend who when talking to another friend on the phone, who was always talking about how bad theings were, would try to "outbad" them.  I would tease them about what started out to be a good conversation getting worse and worse until they both were sad and depressed. 

I remember a man I knew in my home town in New Mexico telling about visiting with a man in a bar.  He said he left the bar because "if after talking to somone you didn't feel at least as good as you did when you started off,  then you didn't need to be around them."  I always referred to this as bar room wisdom but it does ring true.  So pay attention to your conversation and notice if you are uplifting in your conversations or if you are bringing others down.  We all need to be reminded to contribute to making life a little better around us.  I know I do. 

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