Random Act of Kindness No. 33 – Listen to someone’s problem without immediately comparing it to one of your own.
I arrived at University today soaked to the bone. The heavens certainly opened up this morning in London. I was chatting to a couple of my friends before the lecture, and I told them about my RAOK, and if anyone wants to chat about their problems and have an ear to listen give me a shout.
No more than two minutes later we were on the topic of debt, and the ‘joys’ of being overdrawn. I threw my two pence worth in and said how much overdrawn I was. The conversation stopped and they all looked at me.
Balls – I had just compared their problems to mine. How could I do that? Ridiculous, I had been chatting for only a couple of minutes and already I had failed. I decided to give up and unleashed my fury and poured my heart out about how poor I was, and how I don’t have enough money for this months rent that I have to pay on the 23rd. They did a far better job at just listening than I did.
After the lecture I had a phone call. It was from a friend who is having certain boy issues. This friend is female. I am going to call her Doris. Obviously this isn’t her real name but as she had confided in me I won’t give away her name. Now this is something I am pretty sure I won’t have any trouble comparing it to my own problem, as I have no significant other. I am, however, in an open relationship on Facebook, and this is with a boy, so perhaps this is deterring all the beautiful girls that stalk my page everyday. I know you are out there…
Well Doris seems to have a way with picking the bad apple so to speak. Her last boyfriend was well, a bit of a weirdo. I didn’t ever see what Doris did in him!! Since that one, Doris has been taking a bit of a back seat and just waiting to see what happens.
Recently she has met this other guy. He is on her course and was apparently really nice. They hung out together, and did what one does when courting shall I say. Doris and this guy who I will call Andre went official. Facebook official even, now that is a statement. Everything was going swimmingly. But then I got this phone call.
Doris was on the other end sounding rather up set. I asked what the problem was and she said Andre, he just ended things with me. “Ohhh dear, what happened? Tell William, I am all ears” I had to put that in there. Well it turns out Andre gave her as she put it, “the whole, you’re amazing, I really like you, but I can’t speech”. You know how it goes, ‘it’s not you, it’s me’. What a douche. She blamed herself and said she had been a fool. I told her not to blame herself. Blame your geographical position. “You’re up north, it’s not your fault” (I don’t mean to offend any Northerners, it was purely trying to make her feel better).
I was all ears and then tried to give her some advice. I did explain, I’m probably not best qualified for this considering my current single status, nonetheless, I persisted. I assured her, that it is not the end of the world and there will be someone else out there. This Andre is clearly not worth it. I then came out with this corker, “don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened”. Now, I heard this saying from a doctor I saw. I had a broken arm and was at the hospital for a check up. My girlfriend had just gone off to University and dumped me. I was what I thought heart broken. He could tell I was upset and asked what the problem was, he clearly knew that it wasn’t my arm. So I told him, he sat back in his chair and with great wisdom said, “as the great Dr. Suess once said,” and then came out with that quote. It has stuck in my head ever since and I left the hospital with a smile on face. From one doctor to another hey.
This was the perfect opportunity to whip out that bad boy. So I did. Doris’ response was perfect. “You know what, you’re right, you’re so right. Since when have you become so wise”. Well I didn’t let her into my little secret but I guess if she reads this she will know.
This RAOK, made me feel great. I had successfully not compared someone’s problem to my own, and I actually managed to deliver some advice successfully.
All in all, what a result.
No comments:
Post a Comment