Fragile Objections

Suppose you’re sitting in a Toastmasters meeting where members are practicing their speaking skills. Suppose there are about 20 members in the room, which would be pretty typical for a Toastmasters club. Now suppose you hear a fellow member give a speech that you find objectionable, and it bothers you to hear such words spoken within your club. The topic is permitted within the club though. What do you do? Do you stay quiet and keep your thoughts and feelings to yourself? Do you voice your objections to the speaker privately? Do you privately share your concerns with some other members about the speech or the speaker? Do you stand up during the meeting and voice your objections in front of all the members, including the speaker? Do you sign up to give a speech, so you can disagree with the first speech? Do you call for a vote to kick the member out? Do you switch to a different Toastmasters club? Do you quit Toastmasters altogether? How you handle this depends on your personality and how you frame the situation. Your response depends on the meaning you assign. Some assignments of meaning will cause you to have a more fragile relationship with your club, with its members, or with Toastmasters. Other meanings will give you enough resilience to maintain a long-term connection to your club or the organization. Here’s a very fragile assignment of meaning: What that speaker shared is totally out of line and should never be heard...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Abundance Creating Reality Relationships Values Source Type: blogs