August Blog Post

Chapter one talks about the foundations of our dialogue and how we understand them. Our dialogue is so important because we use it constantly and it can be the reason why we get or don't get the opportunities that we come across. Within this, I found that there are three very important terms that go hand in hand when it comes to the foundation of our dialogue. Those terms are informed choice, critical paradigm and critical perspective. I found that these terms are so important when using our communication skills because they help us communicate in the best ways possible.  Informed choice is very broad in the sense that it can mean how we choose to use our non verbal skills, whether we are happy or not towards someone, how much we choose to communicate with people and many other choices. Informed choice means that when we act, we can see patterns in how we move throughout the world and with effort, how we can change those patterns if we want or need too.  The second term, critical paradigm is also very important and it ties in well with informed choices well because it is how we study communication and look out for possible changes. This means that we can think of ways to change what isn't working in a hopeful way so that an issue can quickly become resolved. An example of this would be if you were to get in a fight with your romantic partner, you would analyze the problem and begin to think of a way to fix it as efficiently as possible. The last term, critical perspective is when you begin to make changes happen and change what isn't working and doing so in a hopeful and positive way.

These three terms are so important when it comes to the foundation of our dialogue because they all tie together and basically represent the fact that there are many issues in the world whether it is big or small and the only way to solve those is through good communication which is what these three terms help us do.  I felt like this was easy to tie into the outside world because there are so many issues constantly going on around us. An example I was able to relate to myself about this topic is about when I worked as a server at the five start Shore Lodge hotel in McCall Idaho this past summer.

Considering I worked at such a high end restaurant, there were always issues with people being unhappy and not having things set to their standards. This caused for me to quickly have to learn how to analyze issues and make choices about what was right and what was wrong when communicating with my customers. This included not just my verbal choices but my non verbal choices and decisions such as how in depth I really needed to go with these conversations. The informative choices you make are key to prosper communication especially when solving conflict and I quickly realized it at my summer job.

Overall, one of the biggest keys to good communication is the choices we make and how we go about them. Sometimes conflicts can be hard to resolve but if we use all of the proper and positive communication skills we have acquired over our lifetime, we can always come to a good conclusion.