Please Listen

I found this in the chicken soup series, and instantly liked it and could relate to it. But yeah, as much as its important for you to have someone listen to you, there are so many times I feel the need to be told what to do. Maybe that is what I was going to do as it is, but I feel safe, I feel secure, and I feel assured, when the words come from someone I love and someone I trust. When someone I love gives me advice, it feels good. I feel cared for. I feel there is someone who’ll be there, and who’ll catch me when I fall, and help me get back on my feet.


Please Listen


When I ask you to listen to me
And you start giving me advice,
You have not done what I have asked.
When I ask you to listen to me
And you begin to tell me why I shouldn’t feel that way,
You’re 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 it 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’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 inadequacy.
But 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 – for 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.

Regards,

Devil's own