how crude, even inelegant that intellectual process is.
ASSERTIVE RIGHT IX
You have the right
to say, “I don’t
understand.”
Socrates observed that true wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us. His observation aptly describes one aspect of being human. Not one of us is so quick-witted, so perceptive as to fully understand even most of what goes on around us. Yet we seem to survive in spite of these limits placed on our capabilities by the human condition. We learn what we do by experience, and experience with other people teaches most of us that we do not always understand what another person means or wants. Few of us read minds at all, none of us can read minds very well, and yet many people try to manipulate us into doing what they want us to do by hinting, implying, suggesting, or subtly acting as if they expected us to do something for them. The childish belief we’ve been trained to hold and which makes this type of manipulation possible goes like this: You must anticipate and be sensitive to the needs of other people if we are all to live together without discord. You are expected to understand what these needs are without causing problems by making other people spell out their needs to you. If you do not understand without being constantly told what other people want, you are not capable of living in harmony with others and are irresponsible or ignorant . Examples of manipulation prompted by this infantile belief can be observed frequently in your relationships with people you see every day. Members of your family, fellow employees, roommates, etc., who have such a belief may try to manipulate you into changing your behaviortoward them with “hurt” or “angry” looks and silences. These manipulative attempts usually follow a conflict between yourself and the “injured” party where you have done something that the other person does not like. Instead of verbally asserting themselves in an attempt to gain at least part of what they want through a compromise, they make the judgment for you that (1) you are in the “wrong,” (2) you “should” intuitively understand that they are displeased with your behavior, (3) you “should” automatically understand what behavior displeases them, and (4) you “should” change that behavior for them so they will no longer be “hurt” or “angry.” If you allow the other person to make your own judgment for you that you “should” automatically understand what is bothering him, you are likely to change your behavior for their convenience and also do other things to relieve their “hurt” or “angry” feelings toward you. If you allow this kind of manipulation, you end up not only blocked from doing what you wanted to do, but doing something else to make up for wanting to do it in the first place.
You can also see the manipulation prompted by the childish belief that you have to understand on the part of people in commercial settings. For example, when you go to some private physician’s offices for medical treatment, the time it takes to fill out the forms he wants before he will see you, concerning income, job security, insurance coverage, etc., can take longer than the medical consultation. Sometimes I get the impression that the physician thinks a loan is being asked for instead of medical treatment I’m sure my impression is faulty, but more than once, I have felt that the behavior shown by medical staffs implies that the treatment is for free and I owe them something else besides money.
When I recently went for osteopathic treatment the straw that broke the camel’s back for me (no pun intended!) was the request for my social security number. At that I drew the line and stopped filling in the card. It’s a good thing that it was the last question or he wouldn’t have known whom he was treating. In looking over the nonmedical information form, the nurse toldme that a
ASSERTIVE RIGHT IX
You have the right
to say, “I don’t
understand.”
Socrates observed that true wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us. His observation aptly describes one aspect of being human. Not one of us is so quick-witted, so perceptive as to fully understand even most of what goes on around us. Yet we seem to survive in spite of these limits placed on our capabilities by the human condition. We learn what we do by experience, and experience with other people teaches most of us that we do not always understand what another person means or wants. Few of us read minds at all, none of us can read minds very well, and yet many people try to manipulate us into doing what they want us to do by hinting, implying, suggesting, or subtly acting as if they expected us to do something for them. The childish belief we’ve been trained to hold and which makes this type of manipulation possible goes like this: You must anticipate and be sensitive to the needs of other people if we are all to live together without discord. You are expected to understand what these needs are without causing problems by making other people spell out their needs to you. If you do not understand without being constantly told what other people want, you are not capable of living in harmony with others and are irresponsible or ignorant . Examples of manipulation prompted by this infantile belief can be observed frequently in your relationships with people you see every day. Members of your family, fellow employees, roommates, etc., who have such a belief may try to manipulate you into changing your behaviortoward them with “hurt” or “angry” looks and silences. These manipulative attempts usually follow a conflict between yourself and the “injured” party where you have done something that the other person does not like. Instead of verbally asserting themselves in an attempt to gain at least part of what they want through a compromise, they make the judgment for you that (1) you are in the “wrong,” (2) you “should” intuitively understand that they are displeased with your behavior, (3) you “should” automatically understand what behavior displeases them, and (4) you “should” change that behavior for them so they will no longer be “hurt” or “angry.” If you allow the other person to make your own judgment for you that you “should” automatically understand what is bothering him, you are likely to change your behavior for their convenience and also do other things to relieve their “hurt” or “angry” feelings toward you. If you allow this kind of manipulation, you end up not only blocked from doing what you wanted to do, but doing something else to make up for wanting to do it in the first place.
You can also see the manipulation prompted by the childish belief that you have to understand on the part of people in commercial settings. For example, when you go to some private physician’s offices for medical treatment, the time it takes to fill out the forms he wants before he will see you, concerning income, job security, insurance coverage, etc., can take longer than the medical consultation. Sometimes I get the impression that the physician thinks a loan is being asked for instead of medical treatment I’m sure my impression is faulty, but more than once, I have felt that the behavior shown by medical staffs implies that the treatment is for free and I owe them something else besides money.
When I recently went for osteopathic treatment the straw that broke the camel’s back for me (no pun intended!) was the request for my social security number. At that I drew the line and stopped filling in the card. It’s a good thing that it was the last question or he wouldn’t have known whom he was treating. In looking over the nonmedical information form, the nurse toldme that a
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