A seven year old knows best

On Friday morning, I was reading the newspaper about the US election and I promised myself to understand it. To really understand what it meant.

Yes, the Republicans made it in the house of representatives and strengthened their position in the senate. That's not very good for Obama. I can understand that. But how bad is it? According to my newspaper, it's worse than ever before after WW2. Worse than for Harry Truman in 1946 and worse than for Bill Clinton in 1994. But what does it mean. Really?

At this point of my reading, my seven year old son sat down beside me, watching the front of the newspaper. He then said: That's Obama, isn't it? I said: Yes! He sais: I know why he looks so sad at the picture. I said: You do?! He said: Yes, he will not be able to decide as many things as he could before. He lost a competition, you know.

He then ran away to play again. It took me a while to digest that he actually gave me the answer that easily. He had watched "Lilla Löpsedeln" on TV and they obviously knew how to tell a story that anyone could understand.

I think that's why we often fail in communication. We get lost in details and miss out the real point. Instead of telling a story about an operator, who can now read his newspaper and drink a cup of morning coffee while the machine does his job, we talk about how sharp the cutting edge of the new insert is, or how many cutting edges there are.

Next time I'm writing a text, I'll ask my son how to write it.