WE NEED THE SOUNDING BOARDS







Pic.: Madhusudan D. Jeurkar


Can others else solve my problems?
I don’t think so. But, I think, they can lighten my burden. Yes, they can’t carry my burden; but, they can help me carry it myself

Mukesh, my friend, will be 50 next year. He comes to talk to me quite often, and we both just talk about many of our problems. As I said, neither he can solve my problems nor I can solve his. But, what happens is: when I talk about my problems, Mukesh sincerely listens, shows empathy… becomes my sounding board. Similarly, when Mukesh talks about his problems, I sincerely listen, show empathy… become his sounding board. And, honestly speaking, that much is enough to lighten our respective burdens… That’s enough to find solutions to our ‘big ’problems and give us the strength to carry them.

Yesterday, Mukesh shared with me an interesting thing in this respect. His late dad worked as an ordinary clerk. He hadn’t studied much. But, whenever Mukesh would have some problems about his studies or whatever, he would go to his dad to talk, and the dad would sincerely listen. Mukesh told me as to how, while preparing for his finally-year M.Sc exams, when stuck with some of his complex physics-problems, he would describe the problems to his dad, who would genuinely listen to his son…

And, behold! The solutions to Mukesh’s complex physics-problems would pop up like Genie did from the bottle!

Our little children come from school, throw their bags here and there, come to the kitchen or bedroom where we are preoccupied with our own ‘big’ problems… and they begin narrating their ‘little’ problems (stories) to us… And, what do we do? Do we shoo them away or do we pull them close to us and listen?

Yes, others cannot solve our problems. But, they can help us carry our load ourselves… find our solutions, lighten our burden. All that we need is someone to listen to our problems sincerely… show us empathy… become our sounding boards.

And, in life, that is not only essential, that’s enough, too.

GERALD D’CUNHA

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