“Mouth open, tory jump out.” Nationally, it has been one of those weeks.
A private conversation between two people was unexpectedly made public and somehow became a national debate about some of the most sensitive issues we experience.
Race. Politics. Fairness. Belonging. Leadership.
What was said is irrefutable. We all heard it.
What it meant, however, seems to depend very much on who was listening.
One private conversation produced almost as many interpretations as there were people discussing it.
Some heard evidence of racial prejudice. Others heard legitimate concern. Some saw political opportunity. Others saw political danger. Some used the conversation to support positions they already held, while others used exactly the same words to defend a completely different point of view.
Before long, we weren’t really discussing one conversation anymore. We were discussing ourselves.
Our experiences. Our histories. Our fears. Our political loyalties. Our understanding of race and fairness. Our expectations of each other and of the country in which we live.
And I’ve found myself paying particular attention to something which seems largely missing from the discussion.
The conversation was private. It wasn’t a prepared speech. It wasn’t a media interview. It wasn’t a carefully considered public statement designed for national consumption.
It was two people talking to each other.
Whatever else we may think about what was said, we were hearing concerns as those two people experienced and expressed them in that moment.
Yet very quickly, much of the public discussion moved from trying to understand what was being expressed to interpreting what it meant.
That distinction matters. Because interpretation doesn’t begin only with what someone else says. We bring something to it too.
We bring what we know, what we’ve experienced, what we’ve been taught and what we’ve come to believe. Perhaps most importantly, we bring what previous experiences have taught us to expect.
That last part has been occupying my thinking.
There’s a familiar illustration about someone carrying a cup who gets bumped and spills its contents. Why does coffee spill rather than tea or water? Because coffee was already in the cup.
I’ve found myself thinking about our national conversation in much the same way.
The private conversation may have tipped the cup. But it didn’t put everything we’ve seen spilling out over the past several days into it. Some of what has emerged has been accumulating for years.
Experiences of exclusion. Experiences of discrimination. Distrust. Political division. Fear. Resentment. Different understandings of our history. Different experiences of the same country.
And because those experiences have produced very real outcomes in people’s lives, they don’t simply disappear when the particular experience ends.
We carry forward what we have learned from them. Sometimes consciously. Sometimes without even realising it.
Then something happens today and we don’t encounter it only as something happening today. We also encounter it through everything yesterday has taught us to see, believe and expect.
Perhaps that helps explain how the same words can produce such different meanings.
It happens in organisations too. One employee hears a restructuring announcement and sees opportunity. Another, having previously experienced redundancy, immediately sees danger.
And it happens in relationships. Sometimes we’re responding to the person standing in front of us. Other times, without realising it, we’re also responding to everyone and everything that came before them.
Yesterday doesn’t remain neatly in yesterday. What it produced in us often becomes part of what we bring to today.
Which brings me back to the conversation which started all of this.
Perhaps the greatest opportunity isn’t to decide whose interpretation is correct. Maybe it is to examine what spilled.
What has this episode revealed about what people in our country are actually experiencing? What fears and open wounds remain? What have our previous experiences taught us to expect from each other?
And what might we understand differently if, for a moment, we became more interested in understanding those experiences rather than using them to prove what we already believe?
Because what spilled this week didn’t begin this week.
What yesterday produced doesn’t simply remain in the past. It becomes part of what we bring to today—shaping what we notice, how we interpret it and the choices we make in response.
And today’s choices produce new experiences and outcomes which we carry forward.
That may be one of the more difficult things about becoming. Our outcomes don’t only tell us where we’ve been. They quietly influence what we see next and, ultimately, who we become.
Perhaps, then, the cup tipping over is less of a problem than it first appears. It may also be an opportunity to finally see what is inside.
Reflect & Apply
1️⃣ When something happens which seems to confirm what you believe, to what extent do you stop to ask what previous experiences may be influencing what you see?
2️⃣ Where in your life, organisation or community might a seemingly current problem actually be carrying the outcomes of experiences that came before it?
3️⃣ What could become possible if, instead of immediately defending or condemning what has spilled, we became curious enough to understand what put it in the cup?
📘 Be the Person You Dream of Becoming explores how our thinking, choices and daily experiences shape not only the results we create, but the person we become. It is available on Amazon, in RIK Bookstores nationwide, or directly through me.
Through Becoming Conversations, I work with leaders, professionals and organisations to develop the awareness, discernment and perspective to see more clearly, make wiser choices and create better outcomes.
It takes a lifetime of Becoming to live a life.
Perceptively,
Monica Rogers-Fletcher
Listen to When the Cup Spills