Seeing Beyond Oneself To Understand Others
How many times has it happened to us that we were apparently listening to another person, when in fact we were immersed in our own thoughts?
Max wanted to propose a challenge to his three favorite students: Clara, Alberto and Marta:
He had challenged Clara to find the first skill necessary to relate to others: listening. Marta had been responsible for discovering the second: being in touch with her own feelings. Alberto would have to discover the third.
With the intention of not making things easy for Alberto, he sent him a brief message that said: “It’s your own melody that won’t let you listen to my music.”
Alberto was amazed. He knew he was referring to the third ability to relate to others, but he did not make the slightest sense of that message.
However, he loved such challenges and enjoyed Max’s intellectual games. So he picked up a marker pen and wrote Max’s phrase on a piece of paper. Then he hung it in his office so that he always had the phrase in view.
By doing this, he wanted his subconscious to find the first clues.
Suddenly, a memory came to mind. One night in which Max, in the middle of a long conversation and seeing him totally absorbed in his thoughts, asked him:
“Alberto, where are you? In your world or in our world?
Alberto began to connect the dots. In Max’s riddle, music was a metaphor for thoughts. “My thoughts don’t let me catch yours,” he told himself; and it was still a step further: “The attention in me does not let me pay attention to you.”
This was one of Alberto’s problems and he admitted it without excuses: it was difficult for him to perceive what was happening to others because he was too involved in himself, in their problems or concerns.
And this made him especially awkward in his relationships: sometimes he had acted completely insensitive and, at other times, he had made manifest errors of perception.
He had no doubt what that third skill Max was prompting him to discover was: in order to communicate with others in a constructive way, we must be able to grasp their feelings at all times.
But Alberto was not enough with discovering the skill, he wanted to know how he could integrate and develop it.
He had to learn to be interested in the other; being able to turn off your melody from time to time and listen to the music of others with your five senses.
