I have a friend who listens to me spouting off, sometimes at length, as I do, and then patiently asks me: so what’s the learning? I love him when he asks me that. Because if he’s having a less patient day himself, he’ll jump right in and tell me what I need to learn from this latest experience in my life.
You know that feeling, right?
You know what it means to have someone be patient with you and listen to all your rubbish.
You know what it means when they continue to hold that space, and ask you how you feel about it, what you might learn from it, how you might just let it go – or whatever it is you want them to do or say in that moment, when you know you have, basically, just been ranting, but also that the rant might come from a deep place, might be important if you can just figure out the how and why of it.
You know that feeling, right?
But you know the other feeling too, right? You know the feeling of being on the other side of this, when you’re not having a patient day, and you’ve heard it all before, and you know EXACTLY what you friend needs to do to deal with this stuff. You know how to solve their problem. You jump right in and explain it all to them.
And you get so frustrated with them because somehow they just don’t get it!
Me too.
I know both of those feelings.
I know what I want from my friends and loved ones, and I am so deeply grateful when they are able to give it to me. And I am so angry and frustrated when they don’t.
I also know how loving and beautiful it is to be present for someone who is trying to explain how they feel about whatever it is they are experiencing, and how hard it is to do that: both the explaining and the being present to truly hear it.
I know how even on our most patient days we struggle to keep our shit out of their solution.
Here's a simple thought: I cannot solve your problem.
Doesn’t matter who you are, or what your problem is, I cannot solve it. Only you can do that.
I can tell you what works for me and what doesn’t work for me: I can give you the benefit of my experience.
I can tell you all the things I’ve read about, the workshops I’ve been to, the ideas I’ve stumbled across, point you to the podcasts I listen to and the books I read: I can give you the benefit of my knowledge and information.
What I cannot do is to predict how any of this will impact on you, given your experience, your knowledge and understanding of the world, your priorities, your limitations, your advantages, your connections or isolation, your skills, gifts, talents, fears, hopes, beliefs…and on and on.
I can help. I can support. I can hold space. I can affirm. I can love, like, respect (maybe). I can offer other ways of looking at things.
But I cannot solve your problem. Only you can do that.
And every so often I need to remind myself, that the reverse of that is also true. That you cannot solve my problem. And worse than that, there will be those days when you’re not at your best and you will dump your shit on my problem, which ain’t gonna help one little bit. Ain’t gonna help me; ain’t gonna help you. We’ll both end up feeling worse.
You know that feeling too, right? Been there, done that? I’d be surprised if you haven’t.
That’s the deeper reflection on what I have learned this week. That’s what came out of talking about my week and noticing how different people responded to the things I said. And how I responded to the things other people said.
However, life isn’t all “deep and meaningful” – sometimes it helps to notice the surface-level learning too. So I thought I’d just share a few snippets of what else I learned (or was reminded of) this week...
- Letting go of our expectations, makes the ride much more fun. In a theatre, the lady next to me complained that the performance was “awful, rubbish, it’s like watching Am. Dram.” Her husband responded with “I’m really enjoying it” Truth is, it was being played for laughs, a bit OTT, hammed up to the hilt, which wasn’t what I’d expected either, but just accepting it on those terms it was delightful, hilarious even.
- I still need to learn how to wait. Being kept waiting on a city street for 90 minutes as darkness fell and the cold crept in, did not put me in a good mood.
- When things don’t go the way I expect them to, I still default to ‘distrust’ rather than ‘trust’. Switching that around might make for a more positive experience of life.
- There are people who care about me more than I know, and more people care than I usually realise. You know who you are, and I am grateful to have you in my life.
- There is something weird about Tuesdays – I’ll come back and let you know when I’ve worked out what it is: just about everything I want to engage with gets scheduled for a Tuesday – hey guys! I only have one Tuesday a week. Help me out here.
- The colour blue is the most important one in my universe. Just saying.
- The Laughing Cavalier has a smirk every bit as enigmatic as The Mona Lisa
- Being out in the rain is draining, no matter how well geared-up you are.
- Poems come from everywhere. Not all of them are worth writing down.
The other thing I learned during the last few days is why I keep churning these posts out week
after week. I sometimes wonder if anyone reads, and if they do, whether what I say matters at all. Does it ripple out?
I had a couple of messages from opposite sides of the world this week that answered that question for me. In doing so, they answered the deeper question which is “how do I define success?”
As writers, we’re always asked: what are you trying to achieve, what does success look like, in short 'why do you write?'
I write because I cannot ‘not write’. I write to change the world, one thought at a time. I write because writing is activism and the world needs peaceful activists. I write to invite people to look at the world, at themselves, their lives, their place in the world, and the very planet itself: to look closely, to maybe look differently, to appreciate and value it all.
Success is when one person gets in touch to say it’s working.
Success is also when putting it down on paper works for me, when I recognise that I am learning something from what I write, even if no-one else is.
To quote one of my favourite characters, from one of my favourite TV shows: Go! Learn things!
