I usually read three or so books at a time. And no, I have no trouble keeping them apart. One that I recently started (and am almost finished with) is titled The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens by Sean Covey. It's interesting enough, I suppose, but I have a better formula than the one he's providing (although that's not to say that his formula is potentially workable). I'm reading this book because, the way I see it, almost anything I read can give me insight into something. Also, my uncle gave me the book for my high school graduation, and I figure I should read it because he gave it to me. Besides, it's a book. Enough said.
In reading the section about Habit 5 - "Seek first to understand, than to be understood" - he made mention of some really good points. Things that I knew, but things he was able to put into words pretty decently. Covey stated that "the deepest need of the human heart is to be understood." He then launches into ways on how most people typically listen to others (aka, Five Poor Listening Styles), and then gives advice on how to better listen. In this section though, he included two poems that I'd like to share with you, because both of them describe how I have felt far too often a lot of times during my life.
The first (and more significant one):
PLEASE LISTEN
When I ask you to listen to me
and you start giving me advice,
you have not done what I asked.
When I ask you to listen to me
and you begin to tell me why
I shouldn't feel that way,
you are trampling on my feelings.
When I ask you to listen to me
and you feel you have to do something
to solve my problem,
you have failed me,
strange as it may seem.
Listen! All I ask is that you listen.
Don't talk or do - just hear me.
The second (and slightly less significant, but significant nonetheless):
PLEASE...HEAR WHAT I'M NOT SAYING
Don't be fooled by me. Don't be fooled by the mask I wear. For I wear a mask, I wear a thousand masks, masks that I'm afraid to take off, and none of them is me. Pretending is an art that is second nature with me.
...I give the impression that I'm secure, that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well as without; that confidence is my name and coolness is my game; that the waters are calm and that I'm in command and I need no one. But don't believe it; please don't.
I Idly chatter with you in the suave tones of surface talk. I tell you everything that's really nothing, nothing of what's crying within me. So when I'm going through my routine, don't be fooled by what I'm saying. Please listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying; what I'd like to be able to say; what, for survival, I need to say but I can't say. I dislike the hiding. Honestly I do. I dislike the superficial phony games I'm playing.
I'd really like to be genuine, spontaneous, and me; but you have to help me. You have to help me by holding out your hand, even when that's the last thing I seem to want or need. Each time you are kind and gentle and encouraging, each time you try to understand because you really care, my heart begins to grow wings. Very small wings. Very feeble wings. But wings. With your sensitivity and sympathy and your power of understanding, I can make it. You can breathe life into me. It will not be easy for you. A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls. But love is stronger than strong walls, and therein lies my hope. Please try to beat down those walls with firm hands, but with gentle hands, for a child is very sensitive, and I am a child.
Who am I, you may wonder. For I am every man, every woman, every child...every human you meet.
I'd like to consider myself a good listener. However, it seems as if I have trouble getting people to listen to me...both the words I speak and the words I'm saying without speaking them. I can't tell you the countless times where people have been talking to me, or asked me a question, and when I begin to respond to them, they turn around and begin to speak to someone else. It's been excruciatingly frustrating for me, but its happened so often, I've grown used to it.
And it's not only being ignored upon responding to someone. It's also been when I'm talking to someone, I'm not done with my sentence or string of thoughts, and they interrupt me. Maybe they think I'm done. Or maybe they feel the need to say what they have to say before they forget it. But this is also something that's happened all too often to me. But, it's something that I'm used to.
I've gone back and fourth on the idea if I should speak up about my treatment or not. It can be taken to be disrespectful. And sometimes if I think about it too much, I let it begin to control my thoughts. I get frustrated that people who are friends and family, say they love and respect me but don't show it by how they treat me. Actions speak louder than words and I know the very essence of that truth.
However, despite all the 'should I or should I not speak up about this?' I don't think it's that big of a deal. There are bigger thing in my life that need effort and time than this situation.
Despite all of that rambling though, please. Listen. Not only to me, but to everyone around you.
For their sake.
I'd really like to be genuine, spontaneous, and me; but you have to help me. You have to help me by holding out your hand, even when that's the last thing I seem to want or need. Each time you are kind and gentle and encouraging, each time you try to understand because you really care, my heart begins to grow wings. Very small wings. Very feeble wings. But wings. With your sensitivity and sympathy and your power of understanding, I can make it. You can breathe life into me. It will not be easy for you. A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls. But love is stronger than strong walls, and therein lies my hope. Please try to beat down those walls with firm hands, but with gentle hands, for a child is very sensitive, and I am a child.
Who am I, you may wonder. For I am every man, every woman, every child...every human you meet.
I'd like to consider myself a good listener. However, it seems as if I have trouble getting people to listen to me...both the words I speak and the words I'm saying without speaking them. I can't tell you the countless times where people have been talking to me, or asked me a question, and when I begin to respond to them, they turn around and begin to speak to someone else. It's been excruciatingly frustrating for me, but its happened so often, I've grown used to it.
And it's not only being ignored upon responding to someone. It's also been when I'm talking to someone, I'm not done with my sentence or string of thoughts, and they interrupt me. Maybe they think I'm done. Or maybe they feel the need to say what they have to say before they forget it. But this is also something that's happened all too often to me. But, it's something that I'm used to.
I've gone back and fourth on the idea if I should speak up about my treatment or not. It can be taken to be disrespectful. And sometimes if I think about it too much, I let it begin to control my thoughts. I get frustrated that people who are friends and family, say they love and respect me but don't show it by how they treat me. Actions speak louder than words and I know the very essence of that truth.
However, despite all the 'should I or should I not speak up about this?' I don't think it's that big of a deal. There are bigger thing in my life that need effort and time than this situation.
Despite all of that rambling though, please. Listen. Not only to me, but to everyone around you.
For their sake.
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