How to Find the Right Words: a guide to delivering life's most awkward messages - Hardcover

The School Of Life

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1912891514 ISBN 13: 9781912891511

Publisher: The School of Life Press, 2021

Synopsis

Twenty scenarios explaining how to gently deliver a range of life's most difficult messages while causing minimal harm.

Life constantly requires us to give other people some hugely awkward messages: that we don't love them anymore; that we do love them (though we're not meant to); that they smell a bit; that they're fired; that we're furious with them (though we adore them) or that their music is too loud...

Often, out of embarrassment, we just stay quiet. Occasionally we explode. And typically, we stumble about, looking for the right words - dreading that we didn't find them and thereby causing more hurt than we should. This is a book to help us locate the best possible words to get across a range of life's most difficult messages. With twenty case studies drawn from relationships, friendships, work, our families and service situations, we are gently shown what we might - in an ideal world - find ourselves saying to make our intentions known while causing minimal harm.

We are guided, among other topics, to how best to end a relationship, how to make it up with a child and how gently to let down a friend who wants more. We laugh, we recognise our troubles - and we're introduced to a range of deeply empathetic ways to navigate some of our most acute social dilemmas.

**What people are saying about How to Find the Right Words**

'This is a little gem of a book. In School of Life language (which I hear in my head as the voice of Alain de Botton), which, just succinctly and without arrogance, explains some clear ways of articulating difficult conversations or thoughts with family, friends, partners, work colleagues and strangers. There’s something for everyone. Would be a perfect stocking filler gift.'

’A helpful little book. Sometimes it’s so hard to find just the right words to say in difficult situations. This book can help with that.'

‘This is a cute short read offering many suggestions to how to get around the awkward situations that are unavoidable in life. They are bound to happen at one point or another, don't get caught off guard! This book will help you tackle these situations with grace and confidence.’

‘A warm, supportive book. A short read but containing plenty of moments I went back to re-read and really think about. A lovely reminder that when we're communicating, what we really want to do is extend and experience kindness – easier said than done!’

'This book provides a good idea about how to find the right words to convey your feeling without flaring passion.'

About this title

About the Author

The School of Life is a global organisation helping people lead more fulfilled lives. Through our range of books, gifts and stationery we aim to prompt more thoughtful natures and help everyone to find fulfilment. The School of Life is a resource for exploring self-knowledge, relationships, work, socialising, finding calm and enjoying culture through content, community and conversation. You can find us online, in stores and in welcoming spaces around the world offering classes, events and one-to-one therapy sessions. The School of Life is a rapidly growing global brand, with over 7 million YouTube subscribers, 389,000 Facebook followers, 239,000 Instagram followers and 163,000 Twitter followers. The School of Life Press brings together the thinking and ideas of the School of Life creative team under the direction of series editor, Alain de Botton. Their books share a coherent, curated message that speaks with one voice: calm, reassuring, and sane.

From the Back Cover

Twenty scenarios explaining how to gently deliver a range of life’s most difficult messages while causing minimal harm.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

We should break up

Normally, the message has been clear in our heads for a very long time. The difficulty isn’t so much finding the words; it’s coming to terms with the notion that one has the right to say them. But of course one does – not primarily for our own sake but, far more importantly, for theirs.
This is the worst time, I know. But in reality, there simply isn’t ever going to be a decent time to say this.

 
The temptation is to wait until a ‘good’ moment comes along: when they’ve settled into their new job, after their birthday, when it’s the start of the holidays or when they seem more reliably dissatisfied and annoyed with us. But in reality, whatever date we pick, there never will be a remotely appropriate time. This is going to hurt horribly at any point. One might as well ruin the holiday in Thailand or the brother’s birthday in the name of a greater, more sustainable liberation.
This relationship simply isn’t working for me any more.

 
The greatest cruelty is not to deliver the blow, but to remain in a relationship one has ceased to believe in without saying anything. The moment one truly realises one’s feelings, the primordial duty is to get out of the way – and allow them to start afresh. Wasting someone’s life is the real crime.

 
There could be so much to say, but there isn’t any point right now. In the kindest way, this is what it is.

The impulse can be to start to go into some of the reasons why. The partner themselves may be particularly intent on taking the conversation in a consultative direction, in the hope of being able to unpick your logic and perhaps reverse your conclusions. But you risk thereby ending up in a petty dispute over a long-standing point of friction or facing a desperate plea – and so having to be blunter than you would wish. If they could understand, properly understand, the real issues, you wouldn’t need to be doing this.

 
It may seem like I’m rushing. I’m not. I’ve thought immensely hard about this – and for a long time too. I’m doing what I know deep down is right.
The enemy is hope, the feeling that you might be amenable to a change of heart. Truly being nice doesn’t mean appearing tender, for this risks being mistaken for the old affection which was so recently available to them. There will be plenty of people to whom the partner will now be able to turn for support. Your job isn’t to be delightful, it’s to be as forgettable as possible – which means, in essence, to be something of a shit.

 
It’s probably best if we’re not in touch for a while.

 
Brusqueness and artificially constructed insensitivity is, in the circumstances, a gift. It is material with which you can start to become an object of hatred in their eyes – and therefore can be more easily overcome. Generosity involves allowing oneself to be hated. The ‘nice person’ at the end isn’t someone who makes lengthy sensitive speeches and breaks down in hot tears on the way out, it’s someone who is brave enough to let themselves be detested by the person they have so grievously injured. An explanation, in so far as there is one of any kind, should be concise in the extreme.

 
No one is to blame. Ultimately, both of us are better people than we’d ended up being in this relationship. We both deserve better. And one day, years from now, I think you’ll agree with me.

 
Trying to become friends, or a shoulder to cry on, is only really an option for people who never properly loved each other.

 
The taxi is waiting for me downstairs. 

Goodbye.

Edition details

• Publisher: The School of Life Press
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1912891514
• ISBN 13: 9781912891511
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 96