Please listen.
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 my 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.
Advice is cheap; 20 cents will get
you both Dear Abby and Billy Graham
in the same newspaper.
And I can do for myself; I am not helpless.
Maybe discouraged and faltering,
but not helpless.
When you do something for me that I can
and need to do for myself,
you contribute to my fear and
inadequacy.
But when you accept as a simple fact
that I feel what I feel,
no matter how irrational,
then I can stop trying to convince
you and get about this business
of understanding what's behind
this irrational feeling.
And when it's clear, the answers are
obvious and I don't need advice.
Irrational feelings make sense when
we understand what's behind them.
Perhaps that's why prayer works, sometimes,
for some people-because God is mute,
and he doens't give advice or try
to fix things.
God just listens and lets you work
it out for yourself.
So please listen, and just hear me.
And if you want to talk, wait a minute
for your turn-and I will listen to you.
-Author Unknown
Sometimes, I think I've read too much and remembered too little. I remember vague bits that tickle my brain like the balm in Gilead and the precious memory that's been handed over, too precious to handle or drop. Things I can't quite pin down in my memory.
This I thought of when David was talking about bettering oneself. When I read this, I do not relate to the speaker, but the person being spoken to. Since I was 16, that poem has been what I think back to every time I realize, remember, and agonize over my inability to really 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 my 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.
Advice is cheap; 20 cents will get
you both Dear Abby and Billy Graham
in the same newspaper.
And I can do for myself; I am not helpless.
Maybe discouraged and faltering,
but not helpless.
When you do something for me that I can
and need to do for myself,
you contribute to my fear and
inadequacy.
But when you accept as a simple fact
that I feel what I feel,
no matter how irrational,
then I can stop trying to convince
you and get about this business
of understanding what's behind
this irrational feeling.
And when it's clear, the answers are
obvious and I don't need advice.
Irrational feelings make sense when
we understand what's behind them.
Perhaps that's why prayer works, sometimes,
for some people-because God is mute,
and he doens't give advice or try
to fix things.
God just listens and lets you work
it out for yourself.
So please listen, and just hear me.
And if you want to talk, wait a minute
for your turn-and I will listen to you.
-Author Unknown
Sometimes, I think I've read too much and remembered too little. I remember vague bits that tickle my brain like the balm in Gilead and the precious memory that's been handed over, too precious to handle or drop. Things I can't quite pin down in my memory.
This I thought of when David was talking about bettering oneself. When I read this, I do not relate to the speaker, but the person being spoken to. Since I was 16, that poem has been what I think back to every time I realize, remember, and agonize over my inability to really listen.