BUT WHAT ARE YOU REALLY SAYING HERE?

There are polite ways to phrase questions and requests.

"Please excuse me" sounds much better than "Get outta my way."

"Could you pass me the salt" is nicer than "Whadda ya doing, hogging all the seasonings?!"

But then you get into questions with possibly a dual meaning.

Last night my husband asked me if the dishwasher had clean or dirty dishes in it.

Perfectly reasonable request, but it MEANT something different,

It MEANT "So will you unload it so I don't have to."

A innocent inquiry - "Did you get my laundry done?"

Meaning "Did you get my laundry done and if not, WHY?"

Or am I simply being too sensitive?

 

ULTERIOR MOTIVES

Do you ever think about why you actually do things?

Even our charitable actions - how often do we actually do things for appearances, to improve our public image?

We had an interesting lesson in church today, about being aware of our real underlying intentions. That even good, honorable events may be motivated by purely selfish concerns about our own common appearance.

The class was, understandably, quiet. Suddenly we were all self-conscious - wait a minute, was that why we were here at church, for pure self-interest? Were our benevolent attributes only put on for display?

It was extremely thought-provoking - enough that this may take several blogs to fully discuss.