Intentions

I loved Stone et al.’s comments on “Commenting on other people’s intentions”. This is such a similar scene for me. I want to also add Stone’s comment that we usually benefit from our old experiences to support our ideas on another person’s current intentions. “You did this… before, you said ….before” so “I am sure now you are trying to hurt me because of….”. I had opportunities to reflect back my comments also. He was right in that that we get mad when someone corrects us while we are together with other people, but when we do it we always do it with good intentions. Balzac says in Old Pere that “Consciousness is a stick with which we hit others, we never use it for ourselves”. When I first read this sentence, I was really impressed. Stone et al.’s comments also influenced me very much in that especially when we are very mad and convinced ourselves with the bad intentions of the other side, we do not really think clearly.
One of the other impressive ideas in the book so far was that “Accusing them of bad intentions creates defensiveness”. I was at one of my friends’ house with my husband. My friend was discussing something with her husband and the discussion got worse. Feeling very uncomfortable and not knowing what to do we just sat down and tried to figure out the best moment to excuse ourselves. I observed that the husband was starting all of the sentences with “but…”. He was trying to defend himself all the time. The blaming and not listening to each other made the argument got worse and both sides got very defensive.
I really loved Difficult conversations. I agree with Cathy that the beginning and the ending readings for this course were similar in that they were for a popular audience. I believe I will get a lot of insights about my relationships from this book. I understand better why Max really wanted us to read this book!