Recently, demands and desires have become larger and more sophisticated than ever before, and the burden on those who respond to them must be increasing. Naturally, it is not uncommon for complaints to arise when the desired results are not returned.
In such cases, there is no end to the number of people who say, “I understand,” but wonder if they really understand what they are saying in their responses. Often, the result is not an improvement, but rather an unchanged or worsened situation, which makes us want to ask whether they really understood.
It is safe to say that saying “I understand” here is just an excuse to cut the conversation short, rather than to say “I understand”. This is because when someone says, “I understand,” and you ask, “Then, what do you understand?” you usually get an answer that is either unanswerable or misguided. They think that you are just saying “I understand” to end the conversation quickly because you don’t want to hear it anymore. In other words, they respond in such a way as a result of their obsession with self-preservation, throwing away the attempt to reach a mutually satisfactory content. This is also natural, given the barren quagmire in which the Japanese people find themselves when confronted with each other.
Japanese people often make judgments based on superficial matters without a thorough understanding of the content, and this leads to problems because of premature judgments. As a result, things proceed without proper understanding, and problems and claims erupt.
It is important to put aside what you want to say, listen to the feelings of the other party, and then discuss what is best for both parties by proposing what is best for each other. Without doing so, there is no way that things will improve if we just say “I understand” and push through unilaterally. There are so many Japanese people today who do not understand each other well, and this makes life even more difficult for them.
This is not a matter of “thinking” or “feeling” in a naïve and naïve way. It is not too much to assert, but rather too little to say. This is “the fact”, “the reality” and “the truth”. It’s not a matter of good or bad, it’s nothing more than a golden rule that can’t be described in any other way and has absolutely no room for doubt.