I would like to think I am generally good at checking myself, but sometimes I forget in some situations due to certain conditions (like sleep deprivation). One day, I was extremely sleep deprived and one of my lab partners – he is naturally controlling and untrusting of others – began talking to me about how we need to get a robot to move according to a tv remote’s commands. At first I was arguing with him about it because he was using things that we had not gone over in class. He was having difficulty explaining it and I just wanted to start coding away. Because he’s controlling and untrusting, he was very stubborn about where he stood on the matter and did not understand why I wanted to take the problems on individually instead of overall. But I took a moment to realize that he is explaining the only way he knows that will work, meaning if I explained what I was thinking in a way he understood, he could figure out why it would work and would stop being so stubborn. So after I did, we were able to work together instead of against each other. I know this is only one person, but now I’ll be able to apply this to other people. Now I actively listen and understand instead of listening and debunking or devalidating one’s argument.
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