Take the time to communicate

It's Phone Week!  Saturday is the anniversary of the first telephone call so we are celebrating communication, the phone and technology this week here at the Communication FUNdamentals blog! Today's world is much more fast-paced than it was when I was a kid.  I remember sitting on the porch with my friends, playing kickball in the street, gathering together on the corner to walk to the candy store and spend the afternoon.  Now we rush from activity to activity…do not pass Go…do not collect $200! We want to do so much in such a small amount of time so we rush through things and don’t really understand them.  We read part of a comment on Facebook.  We think of what we are going to make for dinner as we nod our head when Aunt Martha is sharing her heart.  We type an email response while our son is asking us a question.  Did we really hear him?  Did we let his message get through? So many times we don't take the time needed to truly understand someone.  In an effort to have our say (in under 10 seconds), we respond only to half of the comment based on our assumptions of what was said.  We may have missed the person's point entirely.  Now the speaker feels as if he wasn’t worth the 10 extra seconds we didn’t grant him to fully understand.  We put him in a position where he is faced with a decision to remain misunderstood or call us out, sometimes in public. This habit of half-listening has been the cause of so many misunderstandings and damaged friendships.  Let’s all vow to change that bad habit in 2012.  Let’s make a commitment to take the time to fully read that post, listen to our friend, and understand his heart.  Let’s resolve to take the time to support people in their time of need, let them know someone understands, build their confidence, help them prosper and lift them up.  Finally, let’s make a decision to put the lessons we learn from the communication we take the time to hear/read into action in 2012.  Apply the lessons we learn from God, from our friends, from the blog posts we read, from the articles and videos we watch so that their wisdom isn’t lost in our lives. If you have a habit of not taking the time to really listen, read, comment, support or put the lessons learned into action, join with me in a vow to change that in 2012 so that our lives will prosper and we will be a light unto others.  “If you’re not willing to take the time to communicate effectively in the first place, you’re doomed to clear it up in the second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth places!” -JoJoism #200 ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ JoJo Tabares holds a degree in Speech Communication, but it is her humorous approach to communication skills which has made her a highly sought-after Christian speaker and writer.  Her articles appear in homeschool publications, such as Homeschool Enrichment Magazine and The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, which also endorses her Say What You Mean curricula.  You can also find JoJo on web sites such as Crosswalk.com and Dr.Laura.com.  For more information on communication FUNdamentals and Christian-based communication skills for the whole family, please visit http://www.ArtofEloquence.com If you liked this post, please subscribe to our RSS feed and share the link…