Life And Living. Part 20.

I'll Be Back. I Won't Be Long.

Life and Living

Part Twenty

Communication.

Communication is important. One time, I was shopping for a camera for a specific purpose. I told the salesperson I needed a camera for close-up work. Most of my intended work would be within a six to 12-inch shooting range. That was a good definition of close-up work.

Unfortunately, I needed a better way of testing the camera since I needed a card or a computer to test the camera's abilities.

I am sure when I said "close-up," the salesperson's thoughts were in the 6 to 12-foot range. He replied that the camera would be perfect for what I needed. And that is when my problems began.

I struggled to get the camera to focus on the smaller objects I wanted to photograph.

It did not want to focus on items that close automatically.

As a result, the pictures turned out blurry, dull, and not crisp.

To compensate for the crispness I needed, I moved the camera back to get it into a better focus range, but this made the images smaller than I wanted, so I had to rework the pictures by cropping and then enlarging.

This activity might have been OK if it was just going to be one or two pictures, but I had a hundred images I was shooting. Cropping and enlarging took too much time, and besides this, the pictures were still not sharp, and the color needed to be corrected. So I still needed to learn how to get this fixed.

The camera worked perfectly for images 6 to 12 feet away, so I knew he had misunderstood what I wanted when I said I wanted something close-up and not for things like the hills a mile away.

How does the story illustrate anything about Life and Living, you may ask?

Our words can mean different things to others – even people close to us. When visiting with close friends or family members, we may think they will understand what we mean, but we can't be sure. Words spoken quietly and with love can still cause an angry discussion later.

I will only use one phrase as an example, and I hope it doesn't bring back bad memories you have about these simple words: IN A LITTLE BIT.

This phrase – in a little bit – can mean anything from a few minutes to even two or more hours.

If someone gets a call from the kitchen about a meal being ready and the reply of "in a little bit" and 15 or 20 minutes later, his face comes through the door, there may be more than the pot on the stove boiling.

What is the matter?

Communication was made. It should be OK.

But the other one says in the afternoon, I must go to the store for a minute.

I will be back in a little bit, and two hours later, the car returns all safe and sound with no thoughts about the enjoyable, relaxing time shopping.

She said she would be back in a little bit.

What's with this?

Can a household live healthily and safely without understanding even this simple phrase: IN A LITTLE BIT?

Let's be careful. We are responsible for the words we use and what we make them mean.

Say what we mean and mean what we say!

7/12/2020 Larry E. Whittington