Water Park musings:
"Failing to express"
Sunday morning and some of my friends went to a water park to beat the summer heat!
With expensive express tickets to beat the queue, we did the rides, enjoyed the wave pool, played and lazed in the lazy river, bumped each other in the wavy river (artificial waves coming every few seconds and toppling everyone who were on the donut rings, trick was to stay on the donut coz once fallen, was difficult to get back on), had food, lost some money trying to throw balls at stack of cans to win a cushy Donut pillow (I wanted it bad but did not win the pillow).
After the water park, there was also an amusement park where I blew my guts out screaming on the gravity fall ride and the roller coaster!
All in all a great day but then what led to the title?
After the day, we all set out for home with a stopover at a food court for dinner. While having dinner, one friend complimented me on my new look with nerd glasses, salt and pepper beard and a bit messy hair. Having worked in corporate for over 8 years, wearing rimless glasses, always being clean shaved, formal clothes, he found this relaxed casual look a good change. I had left my job recently to start as an independent financial consultant and since then, had a change from my earlier corporate employee looks. I felt very happy to receive the compliment and acknowledged his gesture, said 'Thanks dude' with a smile (everyone noticed it, another small compliment came in) and then, everything went back to the dinner and talks that were happening. Now contrast my almost silent reaction to another very good extroverted friend of mine who if had received such a compliment would have puffed out his chest, acknowledged it loudly, verbally told him how thankful he was, how he was thinking of doing some more changes with the look, continued the conversation a bit more, and most importantly made sure that everyone else took notice of the compliment and if possible, contributed to it, not as a braggart but more because he is like that.
Got me thinking on my drive back home, what if instead of simply acknowledging the compliment, I would have actually told my friend in more words how it felt good to receive the compliment, what made me change my looks, should I get some body tattoo and more that I had in my mind that time but couldn't talk and make a longer conversation! (they are friends of mine since over 12+ years so in a way, they are my tribe) and I just couldn't Express well enough.
I understood, I need to LEARN to EXPRESS verbally, everyday, train myself, taking baby steps, in awkward, in familiar, in non-familiar situations instead of just being awkward in social interactions, just EXPRESS a bit more to let the others know they have been HEARD well and fostering a longer and good communication.
