Respectful Patience

In an email, I recently lamented something that still causes me some unease:  regrettable results of weighing in publicly on controversial matters.  I'm trying to sort this out, so please bear with me while I record some of the bits and pieces that occur to me.  My email correspondent, who is far younger than I, commiserates on this lamentable point, noting that he often experiences something similar.

Sometimes I get a "lecture" that I think is designed to pull all the controversial elements of an issue into a well-stacked load that can ride grandly down the middle of the road in the bed of a powerful, conservatively-styled, but new-looking pickup.  The problem with this is that I feel misunderstood when this happens--since the summary being presented does not look substantially different from my position.  So what's the point of the comment?  I'm trying to figure out what part of the mess* is mine to deal with.  

I'll begin by noting that the effort to lecture me often comes from people a number of decades younger that I am.  Why do they feel the need to lecture me?  Perhaps more germane to my inquiry is the question of why I am particularly annoyed when young people lecture me?  The email writer identified Millennials as the group that annoys him.  They are younger than he is.  I don't have a name for the demographic from whom I am hearing lectures.  Is everyone annoyed when lectured by someone younger? 

Maybe my annoyance stems from being perceived as having not taken the time or possessing the wisdom to think through various aspects of a matter before I weigh in.  While I can't vouch for my wisdom, I can certainly vouch for having taken plenty of time--normally at least.  I am reflexively indecisive at the beginning of considering an idea.  I am also relentlessly restless until something solid emerges from considering a matter.  On the way to resolution, I prune off and throw on the compost pile many details that I'm pretty sure will prove to be "unfruitful" when the ingathering can finally begin.  This discarding of details reveals a limitation I deal with.  My mind simply does not retain no-longer-needed details very well.  

Why do people assume that the "load" they're presenting as the summary of all the relevant considerations looks different from my load--from which I have unpacked only one box to put on display?  The fact that I haven't bothered to reiterate all of the details, that is, unpack all the boxes, doesn't mean that I have failed to consider them.  It may just mean that I'm trying not to be too long-winded.   

By and large, these are people who know me very well.  Why don't they let my input stand on its own merits?  Several possibilities occur to me.  Maybe they haven't really been paying attention in the past, and truly don't know enough to trust me.  Maybe they feel a need to be heard.  Maybe in some back-handed way they're trying to affirm me. Maybe they're working so hard to tiptoe around possible offenses that they don't really voice the disagreement they're feeling with me.  Could it be that a woman's word should always be topped with a man's word?  

Maybe the main issue on all sides is respectful patience.  I need to be patient with younger people.  Younger people need to be respectful toward me.  My patience needs to be laced with respect.  Their respect also calls for patience.  Both of us should be claiming the need for respectful patience as "my part of the mess.

*A term I remember from Leadership Reno county classes.

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The meme below which I saw on Facebook recently (and Joel helped me find again) also speaks to one of the reasons that I am sometimes annoyed by lectures of the kind I referred to above.  Think about it.