Listen More

From telenovelas to real life situations, relationships always play a big role. Those heart breaking events during our teenage days are our testaments to the undeniable fact that relationships are part of our existance. Yes, you have your own love story, your father has his own story to tell, you know the love story of your grandfather, and up to the theater we have the story of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. Yeah, ask Angelina Jolie she knows it too well. However, one must note that relatioships are not only romantic, we too have parental, filial, platonic, etc. Life involves relationships and indeed, relationships make us truly human.

To engage in a relationship is to listen more than the music and words that the ears can hear. Relationships require us to be sensitive to the environment beyond what the skin can feel. To connect with another human being is to gasp for air during difficult times and endure the pains in life. To bond with another person is to exercise the ability to flashback and use the faculty of imagination and think beyond what can be seen in the horizon.

I’ve seen people wearing smiles and filled with joy but on the other end, I’ve seen people sobbing because of fear and loneliness. I’m concerned with the latter. Can we truly comfort our loved ones or even strangers by giving them sound pieces of advice when they’re hurt? Perhaps. Some people probably need a hug to alleviate the pain that envelopes them and somehow feel the warmth of another human being and feel the security that the other person can offer. But probably the best thing that we can do is simply listen patiently to those people who are hurt inside and let their stories be heard. Sometimes, we are too impatient to listen. The reason why we have two ears and one mouth is probably for us to LISTEN MORE and talk less.

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This was first published in my Friendster Blog on May 8, 2005.