Have you ever been embarrassed for your child, who could loudly ask: “Why is this aunt so fat?” or “Why doesn’t uncle have hair on his head?” Probably yes. Children tend to behave spontaneously, as if there were no rules of decency and no laws of politeness.
Consequently, a direct person is one who “cuts the truth-womb” in the face and says what he thinks. Is this correct, does such immediacy work in the modern world? We will talk about this in this post.
Where does immediacy come from
“We were all spontaneous once,” this phrase sounds almost sad for the simple reason that there are almost no spontaneous people among adults. Childhood is a time of daydreaming, belief in miracles, directness and openness. "Immediate" is a perfectly normal childhood trait, along with eternal "whys" to everyone around and active games. However, note that by the age of eight or ten, the child loses his sincerity. He begins to whisper with friends, to remain silent even if he has questions, to keep something in his mind and not express his feelings. Why is that? Very simple. Parents, educators, everyone and everyone around the baby inspire him that a direct person is bad. To be sincere means to be impolite, rude, wrong. For a completely logical and direct question, the baby can be pinched, slapped, told to shut up. Adults retrain the child to be sincere and advise him to quickly learn the rules of this world. And therefore, spontaneity is perfectly eradicated and replaced by hypocrisy.
Spontaneity in adults
As Elena Ermolaeva said, spontaneity and naturalness - these qualities are super-elitist, and not everyone can afford them. This is true. Our template and stereotyped world does not like openness and honesty. It is much more natural for us to lie, to tell a lie, to remain silent than to be direct. This is partly due to learning from childhood. On the other hand, we now and then see the consequences of immediacy. Open people are considered too simple, unpleasant, they are almost feared and not loved. Imagine that we will say in person what we think to our bosses, mothers-in-law and mothers-in-law, teachers, neighbors, even parents? No need to think that all words will be offensive, these are just emotions. No, people are frightened by the truth, and therefore the majority prefers to remain silent to themselves “in a rag”. The spontaneous person may enjoy the absence of "back thoughts", but is hardly happy with how others perceive him.
Reverse side of the coin
Many people confuse immediacy with inversequalities. If spontaneity is naturalness, which does not imply anything bad in relation to others, then excessive simplicity, bordering on rudeness, is already a bad character trait.
These qualities are difficult to confuse. The immediate person lives honestly, never asks for too much and does not offend a person. She will not say to a plump lady "with spontaneity": "You are fat", but she will not be able to hide her thoughts if asked about it. A direct person laughs, cries, behaves as his heart tells him, and not social principles. A boor, a rude man is frankly harmful to society, does not bring anything good or bright to people.
The benefits of immediacy
So, having de alt with the concepts, we can conclude what immediacy is. But is this quality useful? Will direct behavior harm a person, the attitude of society towards him? Most likely not. Authentic, real feeling cannot hurt or interfere. Rather, a person harms himself when he cannot say what is in his mind or in his heart. The spontaneous person is the one who develops, pays tribute to being himself and, finally, to happiness. Be natural and spontaneous.
