Let Me Finish

Bynormbowley

I hate it when someone needs to say to me, “Let me finish!” because it means I’ve been caught being rude and interruptive. And whenever that happens, it’s because I have been presumptuous, assuming that the only good ideas in the room were mine. Unfortunately, it’s a lesson I keep needing to learn.

It’s more than discourteous, it’s robbery. I rob myself, because (believe it or not), I have no monopoly on bright ideas. Routinely, other people actually have better ideas than do I. With one limited exception, everyone in the world has something to teach me, some way to enrich me and those around us, if only we’d listen.

The exception? There exist individuals who are so full of themselves and their perpetually half-baked ideas that time spent with them is time wasted, and it’s better for us, and for the world, to move on. “Letting them finish” could ruin a good portion of the rest of your life.

Even in that case, though, there’s no pressing need to be rude about it. There are at least two circumstances when Heaven overlooks a baldfaced lie – one is when being asked directly for an opinion about an ugly baby, and getting away from a monologue monopolist is the other.

In all other cases, listening attentively, intentionally, and completely to the other speaker is implicit in the notion of “dialogue”. Sitting there revving our mental engine, impatiently waiting for the other person to stop talking so we can resume impressing them with our brilliance, is not dialogue. At best it’s half of a dueling monologue.

“Let me finish!” is more than an admonition for courtesy, it’s also a signal that what the speaker has to say is of significance to them, and that they believe it is of importance to you, as well.

There are a handful of reminders in life we get to shape up and be wiser – parking fines, getting the evil eye for arriving conspicuously late at a public event, forgetting key birthdates and anniversaries. To that list we can add being called out for conversational discourtesy.

Now, then, what were you saying?

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