Why do people misunderstand you?

Cru’s Letter

In today’s world, most people seek to misunderstand.

When you can misunderstand someone and paint them as the “bad guy” you’ve won!

This is something I deal with quite a bit in this funny little social media world and it unfortunately comes from a widespread lack of purpose. If you lack meaning in your life, you can magically become the arbiter of truth and now you have purpose.

It’s a shame because I believe there is only one truth but we’ve now been conditioned to think that the loudest person in the room (or comment section) is telling it.

When I listen to someone speak, I hear the words they say but I also listen past the words to search for their intention. This kind of nuance is almost a lost art because people are quick to judge what they hear within the first three seconds… Literally.

They say when you’re posting on social media, you have to HOOK the viewer within the first three seconds. A pretty harsh timeframe if you ask me.

I find that in a lot of ways, the further we get from the responsibility to survive, the more obsessed we become with fabricated metrics of success.

The metric people are after in their pursuit to misunderstand is leverage and this is because it’s much harder to gain real respect from people so you might as well build credibility through technicality.

Personally, I wish we could all humble ourselves enough to have the humility to seek understanding.

Now, I’m all for healthy debate but I honestly don’t see much of that happening these days. It’s crazy to think that it takes uncommon confidence to look for understanding in someone else but I guess the opportunity to capitalize on their downfall is much more appealing to the masses.

I hope to change this one day.

-Cru

P.S I recently recorded a podcast episode about one of my life choices that created a LOT of misunderstanding… not going to college.

You can listen on Spotify or watch below: