just wait and see

Words can never be taken at face value, one must always consider the motivations behind the words, think about how the speaker is feeling and examine the context of a speakers statement.

For example I noticed a car for sale in the paper, it was really cheap and although I didn’t really want it, I probably could have resold it for more than what the guy was asking. However there was a condition in the ad “Call after 2pm”; so I called at 1.30pm to find the car had already been sold.

My mother immediately remarked “That doesn’t make sense, he said… blah blah” but she didn’t consider the motivations behind the words in the ad. The guy probably knew he would be swamped with calls and had stuff to do, but buyers called anyway and he was happy to be rid of the car quickly.

It just goes to show that people are complex and our statements aren’t reliable at the best of times. But they are consistently unreliable, meaning an intelligent person should factor this unreliability into their decisions. This is not to say that people aren’t trustworthy, most are, but miscommunications are common and we have to take responsibility for interpreting words correctly.