Yes, I meant and. Just hear me out.
Most of us have been in a situation where something important was going on, but nobody wanted to be the one to bring it up.
Maybe it's a family issue, something happening at work, or a part of someone's past that people have already made up their minds about.
That's the elephant in the room.
We tend to focus on the elephant. What it is, who's responsible, and why nobody wants to talk about it. Even when nobody says anything, people still form opinions. I've done that myself.
But what about the room?
The room could be a person. It could be a family, a relationship, a workplace, or an entire situation. There's more to it than just the elephant. There's history, relationships, accomplishments, mistakes, and things we may know nothing about.
And the elephant? It could be a real problem, something relatively small, or even something we've assumed without knowing all the facts.
I want you to think for a second.
You've been in this room for years. You've gotten to know the people and how things work. Then one day you discover there's an elephant.
Does it change how you see the room? Would you have entered that room in the first place if you'd known about the elephant beforehand?
Now reverse that.
Imagine looking through a keyhole and seeing an elephant. It's all you can see. It takes up your entire view, so naturally you assume it's something enormous.
But then you open the door.
What if that elephant turns out to be a small figurine sitting on the fireplace mantel? There's an entire room you couldn't see through that keyhole.
Of course, it could go the other way. You might open the door and discover the elephant really is a serious problem. Maybe the room itself is part of what caused it. Or maybe the elephant you thought you saw wasn't what you believed it to be in the first place.
We don't always have the full picture.
And knowing a room well doesn't necessarily mean we see everything happening inside it.
I don't pretend to have the answer for every situation. I'm not sure anyone does.
But I keep coming back to two questions.
Are we overlooking the room because we're too focused on the elephant? Or are we overlooking the elephant because we've become too comfortable with the room?