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A personal blog. I am an: Award-winning writer. Non-profit entrepreneur. Activist. Religious professional. Foodie. Musician. All around curious soul and Renaissance man.


Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Never Underestimate the Power of a Good Conversation

No matter how bad life gets, no matter how far you are sinking, even when you have come to the conclusion that there just isn't any hope left, sometimes one good conversation or one hug can completely turn your life around.

It is almost magic.

Men, we need to learn this and just keep re-learning. When we have a problem, we just go off by ourselves and absorb it until we work through it. That can work passably well when you are dealing with mundane stresses of the day--it's not great, though. Like Chris Rock says, just because you can do it doesn't mean it's to be done. But when you are dealing with major life issues, it just won't work, anymore. It can take forever to process every problem in isolation like this, and even then it may not be sufficient.

It doesn't make sense to our masculine mind: Talking about something doesn't "fix" anything. What good can it be? Well, I am here to tell you that sometimes that is all the "fix" we need. Just getting your thoughts out of your head and expressed and shared with someone else, hearing their feedback, not always because of the advice that they say but rather the fact that they hear you and affirm what you said. Yes, I hear you and understand.

Then suddenly you feel a weight lifted off of you and you can breathe again. Suddenly your seemingly endless stream of anger has melted away, like it was never there. And no matter how much you have convinced yourself that there is no silver lining to this cloud you're under, the words of someone else might help you see something so obvious you didn't bother to consider. I can't tell you how many times I thought I had it all figured out until someone breathed some words of wisdom into my ear

That is the fix.

And after one good conversation you can find yourself re-emerging into the world refreshed almost instantly. If you had gone off by yourself and muddled over it, it might have taken you ten times as long to get to a point where you felt better about it--and even then, it would probably not be fully resolved. It is gruelling, isolating and insufficient to boot.

Most of us men have only one person who we confide in: Our significant other or spouse. Statistically speaking, women often fare much better after a divorce than men do. That is probably because men just don't have the support structures in place. You lose your girlfriend, you can risk losing your entire world.

Just talk to people. Share your thoughts. Whatever they may be. And keep doing it--even when you don't think you need to, anymore. No, it's not easy, but you'll almost certainly be glad you did it.

I probably shouldn't make this a gender issue, but there is no mistaking the fact that women tend to do this a lot better than men. Women will regularly unload things that a man would keep inside for years. It is actually painful for men to open up, sometimes. And I'm sure this is true of some women as well. But once you do it, you'll be glad you did--even if you don't get the response you wanted from others, you'll at least be glad you unloaded it and said it out loud.

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