The Fine Art of Dialogue

 

Leslie Charles said, “Of course I’m yelling! I’m wrong!”

You have to love the honesty there. But don’t you even see that as being true for a lot of people?

When they start yelling and needing to be right, it’s usually because they haven’t taken in the other side of the story into consideration. Oftentimes, it’s easy in this world to forget the fine art of dialogue.

I have had a dear friend for the last 20 years, and one of the things I love about him is he’s a brilliant, brilliant man at the very top of his profession. Anytime you bring up any subject at all, he’s intrigued.

No matter how much information he already has, he’s always open to listening to another perspective. And he says: “Hmm, there are always more sides to the story” and “I’m curious.”

What if the whole world operated like this? This is the world where we’ve forgotten how to have a dialogue. Where we read the paper, and just go with some dogma… not even curious about another side.

Wouldn’t the world be better if we all just had open hearts to learn from each other and say: “Hmm, that’s interesting, tell me more” as opposed to waiting for them to stop talking so you can teach them why they’re wrong.

I think there are a lot of opportunities to be open to being wrong. Be inquisitive. And be okay with that.

Why not? And here’s the answer anyway… we’re always wrong about everything anyway, there will always be new information that proves everything we know to be true to be wrong.

So get over yourself. It’s time to open up to dialogue.


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