Whirlpool

Two. Listen

My Understanding of  sympathetic listening
I'm sure, depending on the profession or the school, at some point sympathetic listening is taught. From a young age we are taught to actively listen but most never learn the duality of active and sympathetic listening.
It helps differentiate between when someone is looking for an opinion, or an answer or just to be heard, with the freedom of expressing their opinions, thoughts, emotions with no judgement.
  
It's a very useful skill, and it could help a lot of people prevent arguments.
Sometimes, people don't want to hear what they should, or could be doing in a time of stress. Instead they could be looking for the sense of comfort in another person. The ability to trust. It can help people understand each other and grow closer.

     I understand that sometimes it's hard to just listen to someone. Because there could be so many things you want to tell that person, or it could be frustrating because the situation the person is in could be easily fixed if they take your advice. However, you can never know if that person truly even wants your advice or not.

   At some point in my life in the future I'm sure I'll figure that my childish wisdom was wrong, or perhaps I'll be proved further to be correct, and I wouldn't exactly like that. My childlike ideas are rather broody and gloomy.  If I turn to the right one on either side of my arguments, then I don't think I can view life exactly the same. For example, I went to class today, and my teacher, who is rather joyous on Mondays,  likes to renew a motivational phrase to the class. Today was a rather particular one that led off into the conversation about the golden rule. I thought about it. "Treat others like you wish to be treated" and I took a look at my life, and a few things that I've done. I decided that I don't really like the rule, or the idea of continuously forgiving someone and being nice to someone despite how they are to you. Mostly because I've done that before, actually I'm pretty sure I've done that most of  my life and every single time that I've done so I've been taken advantage of or walked all over. There are alot of selfish people in this world and I'm sure we are all aae of that, but we also fail to realize that the action of being selfish isn't actually that bad. However, to those negatively selfish people, they tend to kick dirt on the idea of the golden rule, because now, I don't want anything to do with it. I do not wish to continuously be nice to people who step on my toes and kick at my shins, and when I hold out a hand they take my entire arm. I'm sure that whoever came up with the idea of the golden rule and decided to live every day by it did not intend for me to take it that way or think of it that way. Yet I do. Yet that is how my mind has taken that phrase. "Treat others how you wish to be treated"  my mind took that and remembered all the people who have taken advantage of my kind attempts to live by that like I was a saint, like I was a golden sparkly platter myself. I had been considerably childish to ever think that it was ever easy, I'd always been told it's easy to be smart, it's easy to be nice, it's easier to just do as you're told. It's not, believe it or not it's not easy and it will always get harder, it will always get worse because of the world we live in. Once you open a door you'll find on the other side that there will always be a new door with more locks. As a child i was considered to be smart and blessed with a lot of knowledge, and as soon as my parents noticed the slight hint of fire they took it and smothered it utterly, and completely that by the time i was in seventh grade my brain as burned and my mnd was hazed an i could never understand the words i read, or the sounds vibrating in my mind and all i could want to do was close my tired eyes. They smothered my creativity, and all the sparks i saw like fireworks as a kid, all the dreams i had of playing volleyball  in the big leagues taking spt as a setter and traveling the world doing tournaments or being a creative author who created imaginations for people who cared enough to flip through the books i wrote, and cry with the characters i've scripted. Or any of the dreams of being a great artist like Pablo Picasso, or vincent van gogh. All those childlike wonders were smothered from the start at a young age. So now when i'm told to smile, or to loosen up. When I'm told to "be a child for once" how am I supposed to react? What am I expected to do?  How am I supposed to act when  all m y life I've always been used for my mind like a computer and thrown away like a useless piece of plastic. To be a child, what is that like? I'd hope that maybe my peers never have to ask the same question. And for the ones I know who dont, I hope you'll never take for granted what you had. That although times had been rough and that maybe there were bad times and bad people in your lives, that you at least got the privilege to understand childhood, and live the fullest with all the dreams you have and all the joyous memories you've made. 
   I think that i got astray, at some point or maybe i just slightly hit a tangent, i apologize.