Stories
This is a page dedicated to illustrate how much meaningful conversation can be condensed into one sitting. I share three stories of strangers I met thanks to chance, and how much depth a fleeting conversation can have. (conversation length in hours)
“The boy with no hope” - 1 hr
A curious encounter I had with a young man / boy, who was down on his luck, utterly suicidal and with no hope facing forward. Emotionally abandoned by his parents, the 10+ therapists ranging from psychologists to psychotherapists and even psychiatrists were not able to instill any sort of hope in the boy. He was a self-acclaimed less than 70 IQ person, far from being bright he was considered the true bottom of the barrel of sentient man-kind – and was also treated as such.
From my understanding the young man needed a thread of hope showing him that he is not “useless” “worthless” “less useful than a fly” with utterly no skills or merits to go for himself. Even during the conversation he brought up multiple times how he tried taking his own life, even in the past 24 hours – multiple times at that.
I simply listened to the boy and asked him “What is it that you enjoy?” “It can be any activity, regardless of your results – just tell me what was the thing or activity you truly enjoyed in life”. Overwhelmed by a flood of tears he found his answer – he really liked English. Learning the language, talking, watching movies - it were all major sources of fun. Results wise in school, essentially a D-, barely a passing grade.
I emphasized that I can see and truly understand the situation the boy finds himself in. If he finds joy when interacting with the English language, maybe he can put his energy and effort into that field. He may be someone from the bottom of the barrel, but there are even more unfortunate souls out there. Climbing this mountain of adversity, maybe he can one day teach someone else English, or finding a purpose for themselves.
Endless tears streaming down his face the boy wept, hugged me, and thanked me for listening to him. For truly seeing his essence. For giving him the hope no one ever had before.
"One step from the goal" - 2 hrs
I used to have a colleague with a serious stutter. Our position demanded both cold and warm calls, yet the man struggled stringing together the basic script we were provided during training. My colleague aspired to climb the career ladder and get a manager position within a year. He was backed up by experience and was facing the wall called confidence and consistency.
This was during a time period where I smoked, so we sometimes went for a cigarette together. I offered to listen to his woes, because talking casually was no problem for my colleague. At first he was reluctant to open up, so I shared some of my own worst personal experiences first. After a while, my colleague opened up about childhood abuse, which was the reason for his stuttering.
After having found the courage to open up to a “stranger”, I also gave him a few pointers on how to condense the aforementioned script we received. I also suggested to try offering the clients address each other casually within the first two sentences of the conversation.
Long story short, my colleague found the confidence in himself, barely stuttered anymore and received the position he dreamt of after half a year, albeit at a different company.
“Men are garbage” - 4 hrs
The main reason people come talk to me, is that they already exhausted every other option that were available to them.
During my university days I met a girl, whose relationships all ended after 3 months. She already visited 6 therapists trying to figure out the root cause to no avail. A friend of mine introduced me to her and the 3 of us spent the evening drinking and walking around downtown for about 4 hours.
By the end of it, it turned out that it wasn’t the boyfriends who started acting out, but rather that the girl herself set preposterous expectations once the “trial” period of the relationship was over. The girl realized this herself while I supported her journey with questions and comments. The wine probably helped her loosen up a little, while the right crowd and the person willing to truly lend an ear helped her find the solution to her quandary all on her own.