Listening Well

Like most young people, I felt unsure of myself and I was afraid that people would judge me each time we met. Actually, others were also worrying about how I would judge them.

From that day on, instead of thinking that others were judging me, I now recognized the need people have to make a connection and to share something about themselves. Thus, I discovered a world of people I never would have known otherwise.

On a train going home, I began talking to a man everyone was avoiding because he was weaving and slurring his speech as if drunk. It turned out that he was recovering from a stroke.

He had been the train's engineer and long into the night he revealed to me the history beneath every mile of the railway track. As the morning sun began to show itself, he grabbed my hand and looked into my eyes. 'Thank you for listening. Most people would not bother.' Actually, he did not have to thank me. The pleasure was all mine.

Each encounter became an adventure. Each person, a new lesson in life. The wealthy, the poor, the powerful and the lonely, all were as full of dreams and doubts as I. And each had a unique story to tell, if only I had the ears to hear.

How often to allow such opportunities to pass us by. The girl who everyone thinks is stuck up, the boy with the odd clothes: those people have stories to tell, as surely as you do. And like you, they dream that someone is willing to hear.

Like people first, asks questions later. See if the light you shine on others is not reflected back on you a hundred fold.