Lack of communication is the worst way to destroy a relationship – that, and improper communication. These are two things which lead to horrible situations that we could’ve easily seen coming. What happens with most of our relationships is that we are often faced with conflict in our relationships. This conflict arises from not being able to communicate with one another.

It is a common saying that communication is key for any relationship, but on the face of it, it’s confusing to think about what this means, so let’s break it down and try to understand it. When we talk about communication, we refer to the idea that we need to share our thoughts and feelings with the people around us. It is important to, for example, let people know when you do not like the way that they have done something so that they do not do it the same way again, especially when it directly or indirectly affects you. If you don’t tell them about it, how will they know how you feel about it?

Problems arise in relationships because we often forget that none of us are mind readers and we cannot simply predict or figure out what a person is thinking just like that. To take another example, if you want to borrow a book from someone but haven’t told them that, and they give it to someone else before you tell them, it will be your mistake for not having communicated with them about the same earlier.

Communication and human life go hand in hand because human life and social life go hand in hand. Human life is all about communicating with one another, talking about things like the weather and the government and many other things. Amidst this, we may sometimes find that two humans disagree about something rather than communicating the reason and reasoning behind why it becomes easier to verbally pounce on another and engage in conflict. Wouldn’t it be simpler to merely communicate? The downside is that communicating with a person puts you in a vulnerable position because it requires a person to open up and speak out about what they want and how they feel. Vulnerability is uncomfortable for most people, and that’s why relationships often go down the drain because people are unable to get past their insecurities.

Talking about things is the best way to let your feelings out, or at least this is how it works when talking about the feelings surrounding the various relationships you have in your life. Imagine that you have a significant other in your life, someone who you are in a romantic relationship with, and you disliked something they said about you to someone else. On the one hand, you can pretend like it did not bother you, so you go about as you were, but the emotional turmoil will remain in your mind. On the other hand, if you communicate to your significant other about how they said bothered you, you can talk about it, they will apologise to you, and the air will be cleared. Isn’t this a much better option than to carry around anger or any other negative emotion?

We must all learn how to communicate with one another because life can become very difficult for all of us without communicating. As mentioned before, humans and their social lives go hand in hand. We are social creatures by creation – we are born into and live with our families, interact with people in educational and occupational institutions, and have people around us all the time, no matter where we are. Thus, it is incredibly important to learn what we can now call the art of communication. It is okay to be vulnerable, and it is okay to let out your emotions and feelings when they become too overwhelming, and communication helps us do that.

There are so many different kinds of communication that we have to go through every day. We have to communicate with our parents, teachers, siblings, colleagues, classmates, friends, etc. We even have to communicate with people we don’t even know, such as the bus conductor to buy a ticket from him when we are going somewhere, or asking someone for directions on the road when we are lost some or another form of communication. However, this is just everyday communication, and there’s much more to communication and just how important it is in incidents which are closer to our personal lives.

With every relationship we share, we need to make an effort to communicate well. How will the other person even know what we are thinking and feeling if we do not do so? It is highly understandable that putting everything you think and everything you feel out there for another person to come and listen to you can be quite a scary thing to do – placing yourself on that pedestal of vulnerability and trusting someone enough to keep your thoughts and feelings safe in their minds… Yes, it takes a lot of courage. But without communicating, there is no possible way for us to enjoy good relationships through and through. Without communicating, conflicts and problems will always arise in the relationship, whether the relationship is with your family, friends or even the people with whom you share your workplace.

In talking about the workplace, imagine what would happen if people in offices did not communicate. So many people would miss so many important meetings, so much work would be left behind because no one was informed to do it, and even you are probably able to think of all the catastrophes that could come with not communicating at the workplace efficiently. In offices and companies with great city views and board rooms in the workplace, without communication, these places will fall apart.

Now that we have realised this let’s think about what happens when we apply the same to our lives. Imagine that someone cooks something for you, but you just cannot stand the taste of it. To be nice, you tell this person that you love what they cooked, and then they start making it for you very frequently. With this, to prevent hurting someone you love by not telling them that you did not like what they cooked for you, it will fill you up with some sort of turmoil in your head, which might just explode one day out of nowhere that you wouldn’t know where it came from. That’s what happens when you bottle things up, and the metaphorical bottle inside you explodes. It is better to have just communicated the same in the first place rather than prolonging it to the point that there is more hurt caused by it.

Communication is not merely telling someone about which food you like and which you don’t. No, a deeper level of communication also requires a person to open up, explain why they feel certain things, talk about their traumas, and the happy incidents in their life – it’s allowing someone to get to know you. Without communication, what is there to life rather than mere superficial relationships?

It is of such grave importance that we learn to communicate with one another well, not only to avoid conflict but also to better our relationships at an increasing rate. Good communication means that everyone can be happy because of feeling heard, and isn’t that what we all want at the end of the day, for someone to listen to us and understand us? Well, it is communication which helps us accomplish exactly this.