Given that we were not in agreement when this started, you could say we lobbied for our sides although it wasn’t a pushy sort of lobbying, mostly.

Except for this oh so common expression, “If you just think about it….” It hits a nerve with me and I want to say oh so loudly, “You’re implying that I’m not thinking about it. Please know that I am thinking about it.”

Similarly, one juror said to me while I was the last holdout on one position, “When I get stuck, I just read the instructions.” She went on for a minute or two and I bit my tongue. I yanked at my meditation techniques to keep me from saying something I’d regret. “You’re assuming I’m not reading the instructions.” At several points, I did say that’s why we have juries because it’s not as easy as reading the instructions. It wasn’t worth the furor given that we were close and I was finding good reasons to justify changing my mind although this wasn’t one of them. This was a battle between my ego and hers maybe – or maybe it was all my own ego battle. And ego battles are messy. I’d console my ego later. I didn’t think there was any hope of her understanding my point because she was too ready to come back with words to fill the air to justify her opinion.

Why are we humans so poor at understanding the extent of what’s going on in human communication? I wish we could all sit at the table with little stuffed ego animals so we could all acknowledge those creatures we have no choice but to bring with us, in whatever shape they're in - healthy, beaten down, unconscious, whatever. But of course our egos wouldn’t be too fond of that.