“I” “Love” “You”

“Seriously!” I thought in front of a sobbing colleague.

I was speechless to hear the life events and the situation he was going through. And this is the 6th such incidence where I listened to a person going through hell in their personal life.

Somewhere ‘your own’ don’t care for you and some other place ‘you’ stopped caring for yourself.

I have the privilege to live many lives in one life. I have the fortune of listening to people and get a trailer of their life due to the profession and passion I chose. Listening to people makes me realize every day how foolish I have been in understanding people. I have used logic and tried to be rational, and there is nothing stupider than that to understand human beings.

When you see the color of the dress another person is wearing or the expression the person is carrying on her face, you logically assume the positive mental state. Most of the time, the selection of the color or expression is just to hide the opposite.

Almost every time, it is the opposite where the person is just expressing his pain. We see anger, frustration, annoyance on the face or behavior to safely conclude the person is thinking of himself highly, hence ridiculing others. But due to our misinterpretation, we mostly give more pain through our actions than relieving.

A tirelessly serving person gives us the impression that she is motivated and generous, whereas often, it is to seek attention and love. But our misinterpretation lets us safely give her less attention and enjoy the service.

Our ability to apply logic has made us insensitive, uncaring, and foolish. What we need is to understand others and their core feelings. We can not achieve this when we have so many layers of misinterpretation in our eyes. Hence here are the steps to throw the logic away and see people the way they are.

1. Drop ‘I’: Your emotions, needs, and feelings are the biggest blocker in understanding others. If you genuinely want to understand another person, drop yourself from the story and make the other person the story’s protagonist; you will listen. You don’t even exist, so don’t even compare with your pain, your abilities, or your logic.
2. Invoke “Love”: Love the person like you would love your lover. Deep love makes us understand the other person entirely. The absence of ‘ego’ is not possible without deep love. Your logical self can not be ignored until there is the existence of love.
3. Just “You”: You are now ready to listen to the other person (You) irrespective of the presence of words. The ‘You’ becomes the primary person, and you see the world from that person’s eyes. As they say, You are now in their shoes to understand and walk their life.

You can not change their life. You cant solve their problem. You can’t live their life, but being there to listen to them and hear their heartbeat can give them the strength to fight the world. An active engagement that naturally occurs when you are with them has so much healing power; even the best doctors can’t offer any medicine to help achieve that.