Communication with Consideration for Others—A Quick Way to Complete the Gospel Work

Newborn infants burst out crying at first. Air goes into their lungs as soon as they cry, so they can breathe for the first time.

The first cry is the first breath, and at the same time it is the first communication with the world. A baby makes his or her presence clear with a loud cry. From the first breath until the day when we breathe our last breath, we communicate with our family, friends, colleagues and neighbors throughout our lifetime. Communication with others can be called the mental breath. Just as good breath is essential for good health, good communication is the foundation of a happy life.

Humans are beings that communicate

The film Cast Away depicts the journey of a man who was stranded on a desert island by a plane crash and returned home after four years. It was not hunger or cold but loneliness that pained him the most when he was left alone in the wilderness for a long time. As he was unable to hold back his loneliness any longer, he made a friend; he drew a human face on a volleyball and talked to it. The man frequently said hello to Wilson the volleyball and talked to it to ease his loneliness.

No matter how talented a person may be, he or she cannot live alone. From small daily things—ordering food at a restaurant or buying goods at a supermarket—to the things crucial to a country’s future such as education, business, politics and diplomacy, everything is done in the human relationship through talking and listening. Emphasizing this characteristic of human beings, the ancient philosopher Aristotle said, “Man is by nature a social animal.”

As our society has become more complicated than in the past, we’ve come to have much more diverse human relationships. In the past, people just interacted with their families, neighbors, and people in their school and workplace, but now we, beyond all boundaries, communicate with many and unspecified people in the world who share common interests. We share opinions and information with numerous people, and we feel happy when we confirm our presence and are recognized by them.

The epoch-making development in communications technology now creates new communication ecology where people interact far easily and widely. By just tapping the screen of a smart phone, we are able to send messages immediately to our friends living on the opposite side of the earth. The SNS¹ syndrome—a worldwide sensation that has even brought about a social problem because of the living habit of not letting the smart phone out of our hands—speaks for modern people’s desire to communicate. If the situation has come this far, we can say that communication is as important as the food that we have at every meal.

1. Social Networking Service is an online service that focuses on facilitating the building of social network or relations among unspecified persons.

Communication is positively necessary but not easy

“Man is a knot, a web, a mesh into which relationships are tied. Only those relationships matter.”

According to Saint-Exupéry, the author of The Little Prince, it is important to communicate with others well in order to have a good relationship, but it is not easy. Many people come into conflict with people around them, have a feud, and feel pain as they fail to interact with them properly. Wherever people gather, there are always problems due to a clash of opinions between parents and their children, husbands and their wives, teachers and their students, supervisors and their subordinates, clerks and their customers, athletes and their coaches, and companies and their governments.

A survey found that “difficulty in human relationship”—not the difficulty from a small salary or a lack of job performance—ranks at the top of the list that makes office workers think that they are unhappy. This implies that human relationship is important and difficult as well. We see the same in schools. Nearly half of teenagers had bullied their friends within six months, and 30% of them answered that they experienced being left out. There might be various reasons they leave out their friends, but the biggest reason is a lack of communication. They did not try to solve their problems through conversation, but just cut their friends off from them.

Conflict caused by a lack of communication frequently arises among people who are very close. Divorce rates are increasing every year, and the biggest cause of failed marriages is “personality difference.” In most cases, it is not really because their spouse had serious personality problems but because they did not overcome their “differences” that their marriage finally ended.

No one wants to be in discord with their loving family members, their close friends or their colleagues whom they have to cooperate with. Everyone wants to be happy, and makes efforts to maintain a good relationship in their own way. So, if it is hard for them to have a talk face to face, they try to make a chance to communicate even through the media such as the telephone or the Internet.

However, people often complain that the perplexities in their complicated relationship with others increase more and more as they make more efforts. They say that the invisible wall between them grows higher though they try to make more opportunities to communicate with each other, and finally they stop talking with one another. What on earth is the problem?

A slight difference between communication and non-communication

The global financial crisis that started from Wall Street (the financial district of New York City) in 2008 was caused by bankruptcy of an investment bank. The bank in question had a solid financial structure as one of the Big Four banks in the United States, and its CEO was a self-made man who put his company at world-class status when it was in difficulty in the 1980s.

“I’ve raised this company. This company is far valuable than the market acknowledges.”

This is what he always said. He was overconfident of his knowledge and judgment based on his success experience. He did not listen to the advice of his competent workers and ran the company on his own judgment, and finally he was faced with ruin.

The historian Arnold J. Toynbee used the term “Hubris” to explain the phenomenon where a person, who has a successful experience, obstinately believes that his ability and methodology are right. Hubris is a Greek word for “arrogance,” which means outrageous arrogance that intrudes divine realms without recognizing human limitations.

Even if we do not give an extreme case like hubris, people basically think and judge on the foundation of their experience and knowledge. The problem arises here. Every individual has a different view of value and has lived in different surroundings; so, when we ignore fundamental differences and stick to our own style and try to continue a one-way conversation, then conflicts arise.

One of the reasons that create non-communication among modern people is the style of conversation. As people are accustomed to finishing things “quickly” today, they even speak extempore. They don’t have time to think but promptly say things, send text messages and write a comment. Their mouths react faster and their fingers move more quickly than their heads think. A careless word is a cause of quarrel and misunderstanding.

Faulty expressions, which we habitually use when talking, worsen the relationship with others. Speaking in a slighting way, “What do you know?” “Get lost, you don’t understand anyways,” or speaking in an offensive way, “That’s your problem,” “You’re always like that,” hurt others’ self-esteem unintentionally and make them angry. Since people blurt out these kinds of remarks habitually and unwittingly, they actually don’t know the reason why the other party feels unpleasant.

So, if we try to find the reason for a rough communication only from others, it will be difficult to solve the problem. When we want to change “non-communication” to “communication,” we need to introspect about whether we just insist on our own opinion, or we talk without much thinking, or there is any wrong expression that we use habitually.

Communication is consideration

Communication is a process where people who have different personalities and values cover up the differences among them. Schopenhauer explained this with an example of a hedgehog. A group of hedgehogs try to get close to one another in order to share heat during the cold weather, but they have to remain apart to avoid hurting one another with their sharp spines. Moving forward and backward from one another repeatedly, hedgehogs get a feel for a good distance.

Human relationship is also set up after undergoing this kind of trial and error. The definition of “communicate” in the dictionary is “to transmit information, thought, or feeling so that it is satisfactorily received or understood.” Until the time we arrive at understanding, we need time to mediate differences of opinions and understand one another. In order for us to do so, one of the attitudes we need to have is attentive listening. We usually think that we need to be a good speaker to communicate well, but “listening” is more important than “speaking.” An expert in communication advises us to spend 90% of time in listening while spending 10% of time in speaking.

People are egocentric by nature, so they are prone to only believe what they see. While making a judgment from the facts that they can see, they often overlook the truth. Especially in the relationship between subordinates and superiors where one party just gives a command and the other party receives it, many things are not seen because one party takes the lead in conversation. To know the truth that you did not catch, you need to attentively listen, being brought down to the level of the other party—getting out from the upright position and down to an eye to eye level position. This does not mean that you simply “hear” what the other party is saying, but you put yourself in their position and think about their circumstances. It is not too late to give your opinion after listening.

There is something we have to care about when we speak: Trying to decide the winner in everything—“I am right, you are wrong”—must be avoided. Sometimes we need to tell right from wrong, but if we attack weak spots in others with thorough logic in order to hold fast to our own views as if we were in the battlefield, we might accomplish our goal but we are most likely to hurt others. It is wise to concede one point on the matter if it is okay to be done either in this way or that way, after judging first if it is a matter of choice between right and wrong.

One more thing we need to know is that we have to deliver what we want to say exactly. For example, many foreign people want to learn recipes for bibimbap or bulgogi since Korean food is known worldwide, but many of them complain about the recipes. That’s because there are non-specific expressions such as a “suitable amount of salt” or “some sugar.”

Misunderstandings are apt to occur when we speak vaguely, just assuming that it is easily understandable. To avoid unnecessary conflict, it is important to tell the main point.

Listening to others first, understanding their feelings, and talking in easy and correct words so that they can catch what you are saying, after bringing yourself down to the others’ level! In short, good communication starts from consideration toward others. All of this may be already familiar with us. However, if we do not practice it no matter how well we know about that, it is of no use to us.

Mother’s way of communication works anywhere

The gospel of the new covenant has been rapidly spreading to the whole world, and now the flag of Zion has been put up in more than 7,500 regions in 175 countries. According to Bible prophecy, people from all nations—our spiritual family members who were lost from heaven—are coming into the arms of Elohim. The fact that we have many heavenly family members means that we have more people to communicate with and also means that difficulties in communication can happen.

A fool’s talk brings a rod to his back, but the lips of the wise protect them. Where there are no oxen, the manger is empty, but from the strength of an ox comes an abundant harvest. Pr 14:3–4

A good communication is needed for the heavenly family members’ unity in love without conflict, misunderstanding or feud. When we become one with our brothers and sisters around us, we are able to communicate well with many different people in this vast world and perfectly deliver the love of God.

Communication is not a difficult thing to do. It can be done when we just imitate the way God treats us. As the Bible says that out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks (Mt 12:34), the best communication is to follow the example that God has set us, having the heart of God.

It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love . . . so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him. Jn 13:1, 4–5

For the salvation of human beings, Jesus came in the flesh so that everybody could recognize Him, and spoke in a human voice that everybody could understand. At the Passover supper, the day before His crucifixion, Jesus humbled Himself lower than His disciples and washed their feet that people regarded as unworthy, through which He set an example of communication with serving. Today, Heavenly Mother sets the example of communication with humility by bringing Herself down to Her children’s level and listening to each and every one of them. Yesterday and today, too, the way God communicates with His children is consideration for them with humility and serving.

Now the glorious kingdom of heaven is close at hand, and we are in the process of changing into the complete. Through this process, our brothers and sisters who have different characters can understand and respect one another and love forever. When all of us communicate with one another with a sincere heart, considering each other, and achieve perfect love with humility just as water always flows to lower places and finally arrives at the sea, the gospel will be accomplished and the kingdom of heaven we hope for will become reality.

. . . All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 1 Pe 5:5–6

Bibliography

Sullivan, James E., The Good Listener, Ave Maria Press, 2000

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