The one right thing!

Have you ever felt that at times you just fail to convey what you really want to however much you try! You phrase and rephrase the sentence in your mind but when it finally comes out of your mouth and you hear the echo of it in your "target", the disaster has already struck! It has lost all that it was originally meant to be. Do you also remember those times when you have been unable to convey why do you feel in a particular way? And why some things are so important to you? And why are you all agitated and trying to explain while the rest of the world just passes by? It means nothing to so many. That should be enough! But it is not. Not for you. 

 At times they smirk at you for being so "emotional". They ask you to keep your "self" out of this. Don't get too involved. I have heard this phrase ever so often. Have you ever thought about how does one do that? How does one actually keep one's "self" on a shelf before entering the door of that meeting room where your beliefs, your work, your core values get slaughtered? Is there a special shelf there for the "self" that some of us miss all the time or all of us miss some time? And coming back to the original question, how do you make sure you say the right thing, with or without the "self"?

Oh this crucial "right" thing! It has stolen my sleep on many a nights before the Board meeting that felt like a "make" or "mar"! The same crucial "right" thing that has kept me tossing and turning in the bed after the meeting got over. Which sentence could have been framed better? How else could I have put it across better? Which word failed me? Would it have elicited a different response had it been said in a different manner? Once I tried to give an example of how much my team can professionally manage and started saying, "Madam, we are already working with 100,000 families for the past year" as I wanted to show that we had the experience and ability. But my communication target thought I was boasting on the reach! She said in an extremely irritated voice "Oh! Now get over with it ..whatever is the reach so far...60 thousand ..80 thousand...1 lakh whatever...tell us how the proposed project be managed by your team" And then jumped onto another question assuming I didn't have an answer. She did not wait. Poof!! went my proof of precedence and I stumbled and mumbled to start with Aleph for Allah all over again. I actually did it in Bengali in my head "Ko e komolo-lochon sri hori". That night I could not sleep thinking how it could have been better! Before the meeting, it actually seemed a good strategy to start with reach numbers to show we can do a lot. 

And it happens with friends as well. And your spouse. You want to say something, you try hard to explain, you bring in more and more points, examples, precedence..the result remains the same. The water just passes  by. You make no sense to them. When that happens..its a lost case! Admit it to yourself! Stop trying. Fate has been sealed even before you started speaking. The judgement is out. There is nothing that you can do about it now. 

I know, waiting to be understood is painful. Letting it be the way it is, is painful too. But remember, as Coelho said, "Not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering". Don't suffer..move on. And when you do...I hope you inspire many like me in doing so....