Giraffe In Africa.
Sometimes in life, one will feel helpless. One will lose faith, lose confidence, lose esteem and lose respect. One will feel useless. One will feel unhappy, sensitive, and weak.
I felt that way.
I wanted to learn from what I read recently. Identify an emotion, learn the feeling that emotion brings, experience it and isolate it. I identified it. I knew what it was. I was taught the feeling that accompanied it. And, obviously, I went through it. But, I wanted to isolate it, bringing it further away from me.
But, many a times, things don't go the way you expected it to. I wanted all my 'A's, but they ain't there. Isolating emotions isn't my expertise. It comes back. Back and forth, it challenges me. It is my first time doing this and I think I failed pretty badly.
However, someone came along. She is a project partner for 2 weeks. She just brushed pass me one fine day. That one fine day, I realized that I have a great friend. She listened, she encouraged, she patted, she joked, she made me laugh. She was there to listen.
How many people ever sat down to listen to you talk about your troubles?
Finally, I understand that it feels good to pour out my unhappiness. That it feels great to have a listening ear when I needed it. That I still have a friend that cares about me. That I am not ignored.
I was touched by all the things she did. She said I was her 'kai xin guo'; loosely translated, 'happy fruit'. She showed me that she recognised me as that.
Are you one that bothers to listen to your friend, one that knows when your friend is feeling down, one that allow yourself be a help to a friend? Or are you one that only want others to listen to you, one that is insensitive and ignorant to your friends' feelings, one that never allow others, including your buddy, to take advantage of you?
Have you been a friend? Think about it.
