All Good

I wished A.A. a happy birthday, as his upcoming birthday looms near. He expressed mild displeasure at having to witness yet another birthday, to which I responded he'd done some great things, and he would continue to great things even after the passage of this day, and that everything would turn out OK. It helped him deal with the birthday.

Ultimately, people want me to tell them that "everything will be OK." I didn't learn this lesson for a long time. Growing up, I thought they wanted me to tell them what to do, or how to resolve their problems. And still, some people want that, but mostly, they turn to me because they want to know they're not alone, and that they'll get past X, where X equals whatever their problem is. And a lot of people would get mad at me for "not listening" to them, to the point where it became obvious it didn't matter what I said, so long as it was "everything will be OK."

This was not an easy lesson to learn. I am like a mule, stubborn as all hell. It goes against my natural instinct to solve a problem. My legal training taught me to apply the law to a fact pattern, i.e. solving a problem. My job requires me often to solve problems. I played a lot of Tetris growing, up, i.e. solving a problem. See a problem, solve a problem. That works for objects and situations. It generally fails with people. As I've learned, you can't help people unless they want help. Why fix what's working? Accept it for what it is, accept them for who they are, help only when they need it, not when you think they need it.

That is part of why you cannot solve people's problems for them. Oftentimes, they don't want you to solve the problem. They may know what the solution is already, in which case they wouldn't need your help in implementing, or they are denying what they need to do, and just want some reassurance that (all together now) everything will be OK. It can be rough watching people make their mistakes on their own, or so I have been told when people watch me stumble and fall all too often. However, you need to let them make a lot of mistakes, learn from them, become better people. Otherwise, you get this current generation of entitlement and expectation the world is handed to you on a platter.

It isn't difficult to listen to people. There's a very simple list of requirements that works for me. Sit down next to them, or stand if they prefer. Look them in the eye every once in a while, if they're not crying. If they are, put your hand on their shoulder. Shut your mouth. Make them believe that, at that moment, they are the most important person in the world. Fake it if you don't believe it. Stop thinking about what you're going to say when they stop talking. Listen to them. Listen to them some more. Listen to them until the silence becomes too unbearable for them after they stop talking. Listen to what they're not saying, as well as what they're saying. Remember what they said. Make them believe that what they're saying is important. Fake it if you don't believe it. Don't tell them what you'd do, unless they explicitly ask it, and then make sure they want to hear it. Finally, tell them you're sorry to hear it, that the situation sucks, and that eventually, everything will be OK. Simple, right?

Oftentimes, it's the same thing with people that have legal questions. The answer can almost be secondary. The basic point, that everything will be OK, that there is a course of action sustainable under the law that won't result in a judgment posted against them, or a prison term. Note that this applies more to civil questions than criminal questions, but can be applied to both in certain situations. It is just law, but because it's the law, people tend to get frightened, because of everything that can go wrong. I'm a wizened shaman, sans beard, and I know the magic incantation (all together now): everything will be OK.

You can get a sense of a person, and who they are, just be what they do when you talk to them. Take my aunt and uncle, very different people. She was trained as a teacher, he is a computer developer. She hears what I have to say. He hears I'm not doing the right thing. For him, it goes back to the issue of problem solving. Here's a problem. Solve it. For her, it's a case of teaching. Listen and hear, suggest if you need to, otherwise just listen. I like them both, but guess to which I respond more favorably.

***

I love telling stories. Two thousand years ago, I would have been the tribe's scribe or oral historian. Nowadays, I'm just a compulsive liar because I need to tell people stories. I love storytelling so much I have been working on a novel that, chances are, no one will really ever see because I just had to tell the story. Of course, every story needs at minimum one to tell it, and one to hear it, and for right now, I fulfill both roles. But still, I want someday for someone not me to hear the story.

All at once, storytelling is both wildly important and simply frivolous. Let's start with the latter. Few people make their livings off storytelling. Ours is not a society that can sustain that. With the ever-increasing role technology plays, needs must reward those that can advance our technology, or better weave it into our lives. Storytelling becomes a diversion, but does not truly make our lives better.

Yet stories fuel our dreams, and it is through our dreams that we make the world a better place. By imagining what might become, we're all forced to explore those possibilities, somehow make the intangible tangible. I think of it as the father's role in the son's accomplishments. The son did all the grunt work, but who nurtured the son in the first place?