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The Constellation Learning Newsletter
July 2005
“It
takes two to speak the truth – one to speak, and another
to hear.”
Henry
David Thoreau
When people seek solutions to personal or professional issues
they often perceive the problems as being outside themselves:
the situation, the circumstances, the event, management, family,
or “the other guy.” Asserting their point of view
from the only perspective they truly understand – their
own – they generally present it as though it were the
truth. They say things like, “The fact of the matter
is…” or “Well, the truth is you’re
wrong!”
Truth is a tricky thing. It is elusive and highly subjective.
British philosopher A. N. Whitehead once remarked, “There
are no whole truths; all truths are half truths.” Like
a wedding, it just depends on which side of the aisle you
sit.
A client contacted me recently to explain a shift in her
employment. She had quit. Having connected with me in a class
she had attended and aware that I know her employer well,
she wrote to give me “her side of the story.”
I suspect she was concerned that I might hear a different
version from my friend. Well, of course I’ll hear a
different version from my friend! If he even brings the matter
up, no matter what he says it won’t be the truth, no
more than his former employee’s version is the truth.
It may have been the truth for each of them individually but
collectively the truth lies somewhere in between.
I hear different versions of “the truth” everyday.
So do you. For example, there’s my truth and there’s
my husband’s truth. There’s my son’s truth
and his father’s truth. There is your boss’s truth
and then there’s his boss’s truth. On
and on it goes. It is estimated that at least 90% of all conflict
results from perceptual differences – I see it one way,
you see it another. Then we interpret the data, come to our
individual conclusions and lo and behold! The results differ
and we proclaim each other wrong.
And none of it is true unless the two (or more) people involved
in a misunderstanding find that place where the various interpretations
overlap. That meeting ground, the point in between, is the
place where accuracy can be discerned and connection established.
Somewhere in between the various versions of an incident or
set of circumstances lies the real truth. The trick is in
understanding that to uncover it one must be willing to release
all desire to be right.
What? Hold on now, I didn’t say that means you’re
wrong. It just means you’re not right.
There’s a difference. That difference is to be found
in the place I call the point in between. That point is entirely
objective and dispassionate. That’s the thing about
truth; it doesn’t play favourites.
The next time you’re sure you’re right about
something and someone else is sure you’re wrong ask
yourself if it really matters on what side of the church you
sit at a wedding? Could the truth, the reason for the gathering,
be walking down the center aisle, somewhere in between?
If you look closely, it will be the one dressed in white.
________________________________________
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