“I Don’t Understand”

When someone tells you about a difficult situation or experience they’ve gone through, no one wants to be the one who thinks or says, “I don’t understand.”

We would rather say – “I see,” or “I know how you feel.” However, this is unlikely to help anyone if you do not actually understand what someone is going through.

I deeply want to understand, but I have seen that I often do not truly know what someone else is going through.

We often hear that the first step toward solving a problem is admitting that there is a problem. This makes sense, but what is the second step?

In many cases, the second step may be acknowledging that you do not understand the problem or situation. Sometimes the greatest obstacle to understanding is actually thinking that you understand something. Then when you expect something to work in a certain way and it does not, you are just left confused. Many of us will keep proceeding to try to resolve a problem, using our faulty understanding – and we will keep failing. In such cases, thinking we understand keeps us from making progress.

Let’s consider people’s life experiences – do we truly understand them?

Some experiences are so general that we have all had them in some way.

We have all been hurt in some way. And we have all felt a variety of emotions such as anger, fear, love, joy, embarrassment, pride, and so on.

Yet, we have also all had our own unique experiences that are different from everyone else’s.

Imagine someone who is drained, who has pushed himself to the limits every day – working two full-time jobs, parenting young children, and barely having time to eat, sleep, or go to the restroom during the day. Perhaps he is beyond the point of exhaustion, wanting to take a break but simply not having that option. He needs the jobs to support his family – and he believes that to do anything differently would be irresponsible.

If this person comes to me and shares his life experiences, it’s quite easy for me to use the words:

“I understand.” It even feels natural, as if that is what I am supposed to say.

However, it’s not true. And unfortunately, it’s not helpful to this person because it will be obvious to him that I could not possibly understand.

I have certainly worked hard, and I have even felt overworked, overstressed, and overburdened at times. But I have never been in the situation of needing to work multiple jobs to support a family – and I have certainly never felt that there was no option available to take a different path in my life. I have never lived one day in that type of lifestyle. So how could I possibly understand someone who was truly living that life every day?

If he were to explain his life to me, then empathy and imagination could help me comprehend what he is going through. But it may not give me a true understanding of his life.

Out of necessity in his life, he may skip lunch to commute from one job to the next. He may feel forced into neglecting his kids since he needs to work the hours he does to help support them. He may be past the point of exhaustion every single day, where he feels like a zombie going through the motions rather than a true human being. Perhaps he needs someone to talk to or to help him, but he spends all his time working and helping his family, and he rests very little.

These are life experiences where I don’t think you can truly understand them unless you have lived them.

Similar things can be said for various kinds of trauma. I have had my own challenging experiences in my life, but some people have experienced deep traumas that surpass any troubles I may have gone through.

Recently, when someone was telling me about his troubling life experiences, I found myself saying, “I understand.” Calmly, he told me that “you don’t understand.” And he was right. Certain experiences are too difficult to explain and even more difficult to truly understand.

Sometimes, we can listen or attempt to gain some awareness of what someone has gone through while admitting that we do not truly understand.

This lack of understanding is not a failure. It is actually a true step forward in your growth when you can admit this. When you can understand that you do not understand, you will be able to come to a more truthful place with yourself and the people around you.

At the heart of it, feeling the need to say “I understand” to everything is untruthful. Just because we want to understand does not mean that we do.

In general, in your life, the awareness of not understanding will help you see that there is always so much room to grow.

Arrogance and ignorance make for the worst combination of all. This would mean that you think you know it all, yet you know very little. We must avoid this.

Instead, we should be humble, aim to understand that there is much we do not understand, and hope to grow and understand just a little bit more, day by day.

If you want to get closer to people in your life and build meaningful connections, you will get there more efficiently when you admit that you do not understand their experiences fully. This will open up a window into true understanding.