So, I have always had a short amount of patience when it comes to repeating things.. As a child because I didn't understand that stories needed to have a beginning, middle, and an end (or punchline) I would walk in giggling cause of a joke, tell the beginning, miss the middle and tell the punchline, then get sooo frustrated when I was forced to go back and repeat...
To this day I hate repeating myself.. I'm not talking about telling different people the same story, it's new to them so it's not the same. I'm talking about telling the same person more than once cause they either couldn't hear me, didn't understand, I reverted to my childhood inability to tell linear stories, or they just weren't listening... But now I get more upset if they just aren't listening and ask me to repeat several times, I get annoyed if it's too loud and they can't understand... but I get over that quickly.
Here's my philosophy...
If you don't want to listen, don't have the time to listen or whatever.. don't ask me a question.
If you are busy or can't hear me or whatever... tell me to hold on a minute.
If you figure out you're not understanding me, not getting my point or whatever.. questions are strongly encouraged.. sometimes they help me realize I missed essentials in my story (again I truly do struggle with linear thinking), so even if I get annoyed a bit it really does help.
But, don't bother asking me a question if you aren't listening to me.. and I WILL get frustrated if you choose to make no effort in understanding what I'm saying.. truly HEARING me.. I don't expect anyone to understand everything, comprehend, get it without asking.. I mean after all you can't read my mind... But, when no effort to understand and truly HEAR me is made I get frustrated quickly.
I go to extensive lengths to understand people, to find out what makes them tick, know what's important to them, get their sense of humor, find common ground with them.. those things are important to me because they are each parts to a puzzle and all lead to me being able to love them better. It allows me to show them their importance to me, it gives me the best chance of showing them Jesus. If Jesus cared enough to understand that sometimes the emotional and spiritual was what needed the healing more than the physical, then I need to do the same, so I do that by listening, truly hearing people.
Your most valuable gift you can give someone is your time because you can never replenish it, restore it, get it back or exchange it.. it's simply there one time shot. So, if I sit here and try to understand you and let you in on who I am and what's important to me.. I am doing that on purpose because from what I've discovered you need to know I am a safe secure person... and on a few extremely rare occasions I've found the person that flipped it around on me and suddenly I was telling them things and relying on them because they proved to me they cared.. sometimes in an alarmingly fast pace... But, they are also the people I am more loyal to and more willing to go out of my way to help or touch base with.. because they have established that I am important to them, so they are important in return to me.
I mean think about it.. at least for me I am always amazed and shocked, and feel this surge of love and care from someone when they remember something random and obscure I said, when they remember a day that is important to me, when they can look at me and tell the emotions I'm feeling because of the situation because they chose to listen to me talk about it...
I mean lets be honest.. there are times we forget, don't have time, can't remember, whatever... things happen and things come up, but when you choose to make that a habit, you're telling those around you they are unimportant to you and whatever task or other person you're focused on is actually more important.. that's terrible to do that to people. When you have an agenda and you choose to make that your focus instead, and choose to hear what you want instead of understand what they are saying... That's an awful feeling.
When you don't listen, when you don't truly hear, when you don't care enough to remember... all those point to you not thinking that the person is important enough to remember or give your time to... That's one of the worst feelings, trust me I know.
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