Watch those personal pronouns.
If you haven’t noticed already, this author makes a point of trying to avoid the personal pronouns “I” and “me”. Maybe it’s because it is better to listen that to talk (“God gave you two ears and only one mouth”) and hear what the other person in a conversation has to say. Wait and answer only when they ask, “and let’s hear about you.”
In other words, it’s not about you. Two stories to share.
One of the worse offenders in this is Sid Hartman, the senior sports writer at the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Sid’s columns include more references to him (“in my opinion”, “when I talked with the coach”) than the people he is supposedly reporting about (“my close personal friend”). Now, if you like to read that kind of stuff, ok. But it’s boring and self centered and lacks credibility.
A better story is the one heard a long time ago and one this author lives by. A man was invited to a party. He made a point of spending his time talking to people throughout the evening, asking about them. He only spoke of himself when one of his conversants came out and asked a question directly about him. Then he answered and brought the conversation back to his guest. At the end of the evening, many of the guests this man had engaged in conversation told the hostess how interesting this man was and asked who he was.
We all need to remember to have conversations and not monologues.
Relentless
