I've recently come to understand that people speak through the lens of their own experience. When they give advice, for example, it is colored by their own backstory. When they insult, it is a reflection of unresolved incidents in their own life. Likewise, when they compliment it is more about their own security than it is about the receiver.
Accepting this truth has affected the way I listen. I take most things with a grain of salt now. I try to separate that which is coming from a place of knowledge vs. that which is coming from a place of lingering pain.
And I realized, of course there is so much miscommunication in the world! No one is ever looking through the same lens, so we never see the same thing. We can only see what our experience has taught us. So we must try to understand that all people communicate through their own lenses, colored with their own experiences, and that no two will ever be the same, therefore no two perspectives will ever be the same.
Let us celebrate this diversity. It makes for a creative life.
