No. 1. Don’t try to read other people’s minds. Don’t make other people try to read yours. Communicate.

I consider myself a very self-aware person, by nature and by nurture.  I've read a lot of self-improvement books, surfed the internet for self-help inspiration (there is a lot out there!), and watched a lot of Oprah.  I also consider myself someone who can read other people very well.  I think it is something innate, but can be honed with practice.  To the latter end, I spent an entire summer in high school reading about non-verbal communication, both body language and facial cues, and I've continued my casual study to this day.  I think I'm pretty well-versed for an autodidact.

I also come from a family where there is a decided split between how information is conveyed, and the two sides couldn't be more different.  One side chooses to communicate by taking various assumptions overheard by second, third or fourth parties, and turning them into wholly unsupported facts.  (It's true - I heard it from my second cousin's hairdresser).  The other side always gets it from the horse's mouth, and then proceeds to spread the news throughout the rest of the family, as it happens in most families (Don't tell anyone I told you, but...).  Between these two models of communication, it's a wonder I can communicate half as well as I do.

Okay, truth be told - I'm not that great a communicator, at least not verbally.  I think I fall into the first communication model, where random bits of information gathered from various sources somehow band together to form cold, hard facts in my head, regardless of whether they even have a ring of truth to them in real life. It tends to cause me some stress and while I have the capacity to alleviate that stress by JUST ASKING QUESTIONS, I usually do not.  Instead, I glean little bits of truth through fragments of scattered conversations until I think I know what's real.  It's not something I like about myself and it's taken me along time to realize that this is how I operate.  There is a path that has lead me here (where it starts, I'm still not sure), but I don't have to stay on this path.  I'm trying to cut through the weeds and get off it, even as I type.

I know that it is partly the fear of what people will think of me if I ask the hard questions. Will they think I'm being rude?  Nosy?  Insensitive?  I have a friend at work that has no problem asking the uncomfortable questions (I guess that's why he's the lawyer and I'm not).  A client phoned him one day to give him his new address.  It started with a suite number and my friend laughed at him and said, "You got the boot out of the house?  You chump - I hope you fight harder in the divorce proceedings!"  It was all in jest and the client laughed and was good-natured about it (or so the friend tells me), but I couldn't possibly make light of such a sensitive subject.  I still kick myself for perceived slights I feel that I have inflicted on other people over the years. I'm sure they forgot about them minutes after they happened, but 10 years later, I still cringe.  I know - ridiculous, right?

That is why the first item off the top of this 60 item list resonates with me and is a lesson that I need to absorb and put into practice now.  Life is complicated enough without feeling like I have to read peoples' minds, or have people trying to read mine.  I went for lunch with a couple of workmates not long ago, both of whom I did not know very well.  One of them, I realized quickly, was the type that tried to anticipate what you were going to say, agree with it and then put in their two bits about it.  Within ten minutes, I was ready to strangle them.  And now, I wonder if this is how people feel about me - always guessing about what they are thinking and trying to respond in kind, instead of listening and asking questions and then responding.  How many of my family members and friends secretly want to throttle me because I just won't ask the obvious questions? (I'm pretty sure my mom's fallen into this category for years, but she loves me anyway.)

Proper communication is essential to any relationship, whether it's with your boss, parent, friend or significant other, yet a lot of people seem to take it for granted.  Proper communication also includes arguing in my book, and yet a lot of people (including me!) are sometimes too scared of what might happen if, God forbid, you have a disagreement with a friend.  My best friend in elementary school and I were inseparable for 8 years, save two separate weeks when we called it off.  I remember not being scared of whether or not we were going to patch things up; I moved on and found a new gym partner.  But I accepted her back when she asked me to be her partner the following week, without so much as an "I told you so".  What ever happened to those days?  I suppose ego has a big part to play in communication as well.  Hmm.

Here is my pledge for this post:  I will not try to read other people's minds.  I will not make people try to read mine.  I will not assume that a Facebook post is sufficient to let people know what's going on with me.  I will communicate and ask the hard questions, even when it's harder for me to ask than it is for the person to answer.  

Simplify

One single word, but it could change your life.

A few years ago, I worked with a woman who always seemed to have a certain amount of crazy going on in her life, whether invited or not.  Because we were of the same marital status and age group, we used trade stories about our lives and it was during these talks that I learned of how chaotic her personal life (family, friends, dating, etc.) actually was.

It wasn't always chaotic in a negative way, but there were certainly some instances where I would just shake my head and say, "Wow.  You need to simplify your life!"  After I used this word on her two or three times, I finally suggested she take it and use it as a mantra to live by.  When she got married a couple of years ago, she told me that she still had a piece of paper on her fridge with the word "Simplify" written on it.  I thought that was pretty cool.

Fast forward to 2013 and I find myself in my own mental flux (work, school, dating, etc.) and I am reminded of how easy it is to "do as I say, not as I do".

I was cleaning out my Outlook at work today and I found an email I created that listed "60 Ways to Make Life Simple Again", which is a list that I found by chance last year on a blog written by Marc Chernoff, who is the co-author of a book entitled 1,000 Little Things Happy, Successful People Do Differently.   I loved the list when I found it and put copies of it up on my bulletin board at home and at my desk at work, just as a reminder to myself.

Since I have a friend who insists that I put my random thoughts to paper (or weblog, as the case may be), I decided this exhaustive list could be something I could expound on. Perhaps along the way, I might finally remember to take my own advice and simplify.

In the words of one of my favorite authors, Oscar Wilde, "Life is not complex.  We are complex.  Life is simple, and the simple thing is the right thing."