A Difficult Truth Can Leave Motives Unwritten

A communication lesson: being direct doesn’t require being certain about someone else’s motives. Those are different claims—and blending them can make a hard conversation harder to hear.

Imagine a plan changes after you’ve agreed on it. “You don’t respect my time” assigns a reason. “When the plan changed, I couldn’t prepare” names an event and its effect. The second is still honest; it simply leaves room to learn what happened before deciding what it means.

A practice for difficult truths: write down what happened, what effect it had, and what you need next. Keep interpretations separate, and invite correction where you’re unsure. Clarity doesn’t make a conversation painless, but it can make the real disagreement easier to find.