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I am living with one of my fears even at this moment and I am pondering what to do. No it isn’t that I may live my entire life without my own child or watching a dear sibling struggle with cancer, or even that I miss my family from another province so much I would consider relocating. I am a overcomer, however and I know I can cope with these challenges. These are issues called life and they visit the strongest and the weakest of us.
My biggest fear is that I may have unintentionally hurt someone and in doing so they have pushed me away. Sometimes silence can hurt more than painful words.
Many times for me this fear has played itself out in the world of social media. I am a Blogger, texter, emailer and other social media user. I and others normally have similar rules to life as they do to their media expectations. For instance if I am a person who enjoys an immediate response from those around me in the real world, my expectation is that I would get a similar response in the media world. While this is completely unrealistic, it does reveal an unwritten code of usage. This unwritten code is very different for each person.
Recently I sent a message to someone and I waited expectantly for a reply. When I didn’t hear within a reasonable time excessive of 24 hours, I wondered if I had said something to offend them. In fact I carried around a heavy bag of metaphorical sand and was concerned that what I sent warranted a ‘silent’ treatment. In reality, the message was simply read and then life got very busy for them. What was important for me to learn is that ‘if in doubt check it out’. I just simply asked if everything was ok… and it was!
There is no way to avoid this situation, if you haven’t faced it yet, you will.
In reality, usage of media is a personal thing, and unfortunately there are people who have to depend on it for their work. At the end of the day the last thing they want to do is answer another email or a text message. They simply want to unplug!
emptyhands2openarms 
Your “if in doubt check it out” is so right on. In my work, we call this “checking out your fantasies”. We have all sorts of fantasies about what other people are thinking and feeling. If we don’t check them out with the other person we are likely to end up in pain or develop resentments. SOOOOO often our fantasies are wrong. If we check them out we can let go of them! And if they end up being accurate then we can work with the other person to solve the problem!
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I struggle with this all the time… and I have to remind myself I am not a mind reader… it happens often that I second guess and I’m trying to live by this principle. Thank you for the insight. Appreciate you!
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🙂
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