Hijacked
Hijacked
You know how it is when you’re talking to someone and they hijack the conversation?
You’re explaining something, adding details, building the story to get to your point--and they take one comment and run with it. They manage a complete turn where you were only slowing to point out an important landmark.
And because you’re too polite to do the same thing to them, you let them build their house on your foundation, tell their story, make their point. You go ahead and have the conversation their way, and by the time you can bring it up again, your own idea is so left field of where you’ve just arrived that you let it go.
You never get to finish what you started.
Sometimes you don’t even get to get started. The first sentence out of your mouth serves as the prompt for them to talk, related to what you just said either tangentially or not at all.
Remember how you feel when that happens?
Unheard.
Unimportant.
Unvalued.
Maybe it made you not want to bother talking to them again. If it happens with the same person enough times, you learn to just not even try. Let them do the talking, smile and nod, play along, and keep your own thoughts under wraps.
You wait until you’re with a safer person, someone else with whom you feel like you get at least equal time, or know well enough to feel comfortable hijacking the conversation back.
And remember how you felt when you did get to that someone and they really listened to you? When they stopped fiddling with their coffee cup, leaned forward, nodded, and said “And then what?”
Heard.
Seen.
Important.
Worth the time.
I’ve been trying to be the listener, the noticer.
When I consider how I feel in the interactions I have on a daily basis, I think probably everyone gets the short end of the positive attention span most of the time. So I’ve tried to be much more deliberate in letting people finish their stories, finding ways to be interested and ask more.
And I’ve tried to pay attention to the people I interact with on the most casual basis--the ones helping me like they help hundreds of people all day long. It’s important to me to take the few extra seconds to make eye contact and look them in the face when I say thank you. If there is an interesting or unusual name on their name tag, I like to ask about it. If I see a great nail polish design polish or a cool color, I ask if I can look a little closer. (There is really a lot of fabulous nail art out there, have you noticed?)
Sometimes I regret getting into conversations, losing the time. Sometimes I think my dumb little comments about nail polish are just dumb comments. But I remind myself that I’m not there for me. I’m full up of good, and I have plenty to share. So many people who need every boost they can get, not because they’re self-centered but because life can get really hard. That moment of tangible connection might be huge for them.
It truly costs so little to give someone the gift of my attention.
I don’t want to be another person they have to compete with. I’d rather be the reason they feel decent at least once today.
What about you? Are you the hijacker or the noticer?
Toward the promise,
Lana
#431
O God in Heaven,
You have poured such goodness
into my day or rather
You have placed me into your day
filled with Your goodness
Sunshine and mercies
Busy orderly ants
Poems that tie the world together
Let this be my worship
That I not think too much
That I not take a moment
for granted
That I ever see You long before
the taste of ashes and heaviness
which I carry so closely
crosses my stammering tongue
5-26-2023
Here’s the link to last week’s issue Cutting out
Yes! I have had that experience! And I think it does prompt some of us to be better listeners and pay attention to others who may want to express themselves.