Once born we’ll immediately try to influence our surroundings. However, these efforts will also be accompanied by an experience of existing limitations to our influence. Many of these will simply result from the situation and our ability to formulate clearly what we need or want. As emotions are our only way to communicate, our limited language meets our environment’s ability to hear or understand our communication and respond to it. It’s as if one would use two different languages. Our needs and wants themselves, however, are very clear and spontaneous.

Despite our ability to learn new communication methods, the results may not correspond to our expectations. The challenge remains the same. We are limited by our ability to formulate clearly what we need or want. This is also true for our environment. It remains limited in its ability to hear or understand our communication and respond to it. But now that we’ve learned the usage of a language, it is clarity and often also spontaneity that have disappeared.

Apart from learning to speak, we’ve also developed our idea of how to ask for something, what we can ask for, and how others will react to our requests. But what we’ve learned is so unique to us that there is a good chance that others will be confused by our ask. However, instead of checking if we’ve been understood, we assume that their confusion is a rejection.

Assuming that we’ll be or have been understood may be our biggest obstacle.