Week 4 Question 3 An Interesting Concept

The one concept that I found useful from the reading is the concept of the pragmatic perspective. That perspective really hit home and opened my eyes to how selfish I've been. In my second post, I wrote about my former roommate and how we did not get along. The whole time I was blaming her and how she couldn't adapt to the changing environment. She grew up in a small town while I was a big town girl. She wanted alone time and I needed a roommate who wanted to be around me. Therefore I concluded that it must be a difference in personality. The pragmatic perspective is looking at communication as a game in which each person's move is dependent on the other. I finally realized that I must have done something offensive to her to have made her act defensively back and vice versa. This perspective made me reanalyze what I must have done to have hurt her.

As much as I enjoyed learning about the pragmatic perspective, I still believe that in a long-term and strong relationship, the involved players need to understand the intent and purpose of the other person's actions as well as desires and needs. Now I have an awesome roommate; we both get along and we both enjoy each other's company. But If I did not understand why my current roommate does what she does, I will never be able to get along with her because I won't have the ability to empathize with her. Sometimes, she leaves the house a mess but because I can understand that she is having a bad day, I do not have a grudge on her. Most of the times, having an understanding of other people can help you forgive their mistakes like how I am able to forgive my current roommate for not cleaning when she is not feeling good. She means me no offense, she is just not feeling happy herself. Before was unable to forgive my first roommate because I was not able to sympathize with her, but now I can see that she didn't have the same childhood as I did, therefore I cannot blame her for her actions. I factored in the circumstances that surrounded our game to happily accept the failure of our relationship. I've learned and now I am creating a stronger, better, and healthier relationship with my current roommate by taking into consideration her personality, culture, and surrounding circumstances.