Interpretation

Today I had a thought and decided to elaborate on it.

Have you ever received an email, text, letter, or participated in a conversation, and then later on you discovered that you or the other person(s) involved misinterpreted the whole communication? In your mind, you though you were being clear, concise, and to the point. However, in the other person's mind, they thought you meant something totally different.

What makes one person interpret a message one way, while the other interprets the same message differently?

I think the answer to that is simple. Everyone interprets information differently. Some people's brainwaves function on a vague level, whereas others operate on a more detailed level. Let me explain further...

Some people can only grasp and/or process smaller pieces of a puzzle before seeing the big picture; while others initially look at the bigger picture and work their way down to the smaller pieces.

Case in point:  If someone requests you to complete a task, then wouldn't you expect them to provide you with the details of the exact information they're needing? In the vague person's mind, they'll go about completing the task the best way they can, "assuming" to know what information is expected of them. On the contrary, the more detailed person would read over the instructions first just to be clear on what the assignment entails or to make sure all the I's are dotted and T's are crossed.

The more detailed person doesn't want to leave any room for assuming, as they know the consequences of doing so all to well, which includes double work in the long run due to correcting errors or adding on additional work all because a few details or specifics were left out of the initial instructions.

The detail-minded person has a few mottos to live by:

• Be as clear, concise, and to the point as best as possible
• Being specific allows NO room for doubt or confusion
• If you don't know something, then by all means ASK

Too many times people waste time on assuming things, when all they had to do was ask for specifics or clarification in the first place.