Does any of the following resonate with the reader?

I have no idea where the following originated, but I extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to its author because of its message which I believe to be even more important in our busy personal and professional lives.

LISTEN.

When I ask you to listen to me and you start giving 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 that may seem.

Listen!! All I asked was that you listen, not talk or do, just hear me.

Advice is cheap: 20 cents will get you both a Dear Abby and Bill Graham in the same newspaper.  AND I can do that for myself, I’m 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 weakness. But, when you accept as a simple fact that I do feel what I feel, no matter how irrational, then I can quit trying to convince you and can get about the business of understanding what’s behind this irrational feeling. When that’s clear, the answers are obvious, and I don’t need advice. Irrational feel make sense when we understand what’s behind them.

So please listen and just hear me and if you want to talk, wait a minute for your turn and I’ll listen to you!

Anonymous

Surely, there’s a lesson to be learnt here?