I grew up as a kid with Chicken Soup for Teenage Soul as her bible.
I bought my first English copy of Chicken Soup for Teenage Soul 1 back in US. I love it so much that used to read it over n over, brought it wherever i go. Now some parts of the book has teared and some pages hv gone.
I loved to read it outloud n tried to memorize every line though i didnt know what they meant. I was in the 1st grade of junior high school, my vocab was very limited.
However, the memorizing part was a huge success. This is one of my favorite.
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 that 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.
Buy 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 that'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 doesn'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
I really really love this poem.
I believe that most of us sometimes just need to be listened for a while. But mostly, what we get is a series of advices, which actually we didnt ask. But i think it comes naturally.
When in college, there is this one theory which is called Narrative Paradigm by Walter Fisher that asserts that people are essentially storytelling animals and our reason is best appealed to through stories. Or to be shorted "humans are storyteller". We create we and our lives through the storries we tell.
See, so we know that people love to talk and be listened, and not to listen.
Last saturday i met one of my close friend. I just found out recently that she is moving to Singapore soon. I know Singapore is just half an hour away, but still it sadenned me.
Eliz is such a good listener. She just listen n not judging. Well i dont know if she is mocking me in the inside. Haha.. Just kidding.
So that is why i writw this post. Cos i think the poem above reflects how i feel, cause she always listens.
Thanx yah Eliz.
This is our picture, taken last Saturday at Bamboo ;)
Im gonna miss ya. Hoho
Love,
Ain
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