Yesterday some coworkers and I had a "mentoring" meeting with our commander...no we were not in trouble, this is just one of those military things we do. During this meeting he said somethings that I think are so often forgotten. First he told us to never confront people when we are angry because "You will give the best speech of your life that you will later regret." How true this is, how often have you been just livid with something that has happened and you just go off and either confront the situation or vent to someone then later look back and think wow I totally over reacted or said something totally out of line. I know I have done it. Another really good piece of advice I think people forget is don't be so quick to make judgements/assumptions. Again I know I am guilty of this. Recent example is I found a high school friend of my has been battling lupus for sometime now, and I never knew. My friends and I were quick to judge her as "faking" being sick to get out doing hard swim practices with us. Little did we know that she had some underlying condition weather she knew it at the time or not I don't know, but that is irrelevant. I feel just terrible and wish I could go back and stand up for her and stop the mean things we said. I can't say I won't fall victim to the judgement trap because I am only human, but I will try my hardest to step back and try to remind myself that I don't always know the whole story.
What advice do you have?
Great post! We saw that first hand this week in the Delta Gamma email from UMD... always take a minute to consider all of the possibilities.
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