How do you reach another person’s heart? In this case, I don’t mean romantically. Rather, to move a person to action. Why should someone else listen to you? Who made you the fountain of all knowledge?
Parents, teachers, gurus, advisers, counsellors… do not always have an easy task! It can involve a great deal of patience. All of the knowledge, experience, insight that you have acquired and are now trying to impart to a child, student, disciple, client or patient. It may seem to go in one of their ears, and faster than the speed of light, it fleas straight out of the other ear.
Sigh!
At the end of the day…no matter how much you might try, it is up to an individual whether they listen, whether they heed, whether they apply all the well-meant advice and guidance offered. Each person has to make their own decisions and live with the consequences. It can be painful to watch at times.
I have done a little teaching. I often remembered a phrase which I heard from my parents many times. As the title of this post indicates:
People Don’t Really Care How Much You Know…
Until They Know How Much You Care
I thought about that a lot. I know it was true in my own case. I heeded the advice of those I was convinced truly cared about my long lasting welfare.
I have family and friends who have many academic accomplishments under their belt. However, at times, they seem to want to lecture us on a series of topics that are of very little interest to us. We do not debate that they are clearly very knowledgeable on these subjects. However, it is difficult to endure a lecture on a subject that bears little relevance on your life.
Without sounding overly sceptical, I have reached an age where I can see that advice on everything from diet, vitamins, finances, health can change from year to year. I am a lot more cautious and shrewd in general.
No matter how clever you might be, the truth often is, people don’t really care!
Unless…they know that you really care.
When someone is trying to teach me, train me, move me to change something or prompt me to action..what really touches my heart is seeing a glimpse of their heart. When they put their heart, their conviction into their words. When they skilfully help me to see the true value, the benefit of their advice. When they are undoubtedly sincere, genuine and disinterested in their motives. It is so much easier to swallow their goading, even if initially it is unwelcome.
Advice reaches my heart when I am sure that they truly do care. They might not be voicing exactly what I would like to hear. Even if sounds perfectly reasonable and is delivered with polished eloquence, I may chafe against the counsel to begin with. Sometimes my own heart wants to lead me in a very different direction. But at they end of the day, I am won over by realizing I am loved. Someone cares enough to point out to me that I need to make a change or take an action that might be uncomfortable to me. I am grateful for that level of concern. Eventually I see the evidence of genuine care.
I have to make my own decisions. I have to live with those decisions. I have to be happy with my decisions. If I regret my decision, it is wise to admit that and make a change. I am more than happy to listen to the opinions of others. But what sways me is not just how clever they seem, but the combination of how caring and concerned and convinced they are.
So whenever I am in a role where I have to offer advice…I try to keep that phrase to the forefront of my mind:
People Don’t Really Care How Much You Know…
Until They Know How Much You Care
I am going to admit to you… I am so tired my head feels numb, so I don’t think I explained that very well… but you do know what I mean don’t you?
I am not as much of a deep thinker as I used to be. I used to think and contemplate a lot when I was a younger. But now I am more of a “liver”. I’ve already made sense of so many things in my head, it has provided me with a wonderful foundation to live with gusto! Having things sorted in your head does make for a better life on the whole.
A couple of weeks later I went for a walk across London and ended up on the same little side-street as he was. I was overwhelmed and walked past hoping he had not seen me. He saw me. He managed to convince one of my close friends to give him my number (I had expressly asked my close friends not to give out my new number to anyone after what happened with social media a few years ago.) He rang me. I just happened to have the day free (I don’t normally) and so I was home when he rang. I was relaxed. We talked. It was a very positive conversation, we even laughed. He said some lovely things, including offering an humble apology. I agreed to meet him.
And here we are weeks later…I can hardly believe it! I find myself contemplating everything, fascinated by the twists in this saga. It was almost as if I had to have some preparation for my heart and my mind to be ready. I mean to ask him if there was anything that prompted and prepared him for this. I feel as if I have been around the world and come back again. I have been travelling along this road of life, and although enjoying the journey, I was always wondering about the destination. Right now…I feel as if I have found him again. I can hear his voice in my sleep, it’s him whispering in the night. I can hear his heartbeat when I am resting in his arms. We are at peace, that’s amazing. Everything else that has happened has been an unexpected and wonderful bonus. It was the sense of peace I was searching for all this time.
SHARE-YOUR-WORLD becomes SHARE-YOUR-HEART this week! I am stepping up to the challenge, as after a year with Goldfinch in my life, my heart is pretty much brimming over.
With friends!!!
There is one man who sadly died recently after living for almost an entire century. He had been a full-time volunteer since he was about twenty years old. In his nineties he still working full-time, and was managing a department of around forty men and helping to coordinate projects internationally. He was still travelling extensively in connection with those projects. He was an early riser and used to make a point of greeting other colleagues when they arrived at work and having a chat with them. He always wanted to make sure everyone else was happy and felt free to come forward if they were having any personal problems. He was a wise astute balanced man who had a twinkle in his eye and a warm smile.)
He had a fall at work and was taken to hospital and for the first time in his life had to stay overnight in hospital. On arriving at the hospital the next morning, we were told that the hospital staff had some concerns that he may be showing signs of dementia. We had never noticed any signs of dementia, so we were rather curious. The hospital staff said that they had heard him saying he wanted to leave hospital as soon as possible because he needed to be back at work. He had been talking about a board meeting. They assumed that as he was well into his nineties he was surely not working. We had to confirm to the hospital staff that he did work full-time, that he did chair board meetings, that he did manage a huge department and that he had not had a day off sick for seventy years.
He died a few years later that fall of cancer. He had been a full-time volunteer for over seventy years and had trained thousands of other volunteers. He had travelled to many countries and was remembered fondly by many. His funeral was enormous! One of the largest funerals I have ever attended. Boy did I admire him! I remember many of the inspirational conversations we had.
For example, after I was attacked, I did not want everyone to know what had happened to me. A few key people knew, but they kindly made sure that the news did not get around. At the time that seemed best. I could not cope with the messages I was receiving (many hundreds of messages) and so I switched off my phone and did not look at it. Eventually I left home without that phone, so I have never been able to face all those messages from friends and workmates who knew I had vanished very suddenly from London but had no idea why.
Now, I wonder whether it would have been best to have made sure people knew I left London because I was the victim of a serious crime. I am sure that many think I left London in shame. The rumours prior to my disappearance had been that I was having an affair with a married man. I am sure people think that I left London in disgrace.
It completely depends on my footwear. If I am wearing a pretty pair of shoes, of course I would want to avoid puddles at all costs. I am not going to ruin a pretty pair of shoes just because I like puddle jumping.
SO NOW HERE IS THE PART WHEN I SAY, IF YOU ARE TOO YOUNG TO BE READING ABOUT ADULT STUFF – THEN IT’S TIME TO CLOSE THE POST DOWN NOW AND MOVE ONTO ANOTHER BLOGGER’S POST.
As soon as we were inside he would put his bag down and take his shoes/boots off. In the sweet little flat I live in, straight in front of the front door is the kitchen. Sometimes we did not even make it out of the kitchen!
Other times we would just head straight to the bedroom. We normally spent an hour or two before sleep, depending how tired we were. He would usually wake me about five o’clock in the morning to make love to me. My head would be very painful, so all I could do is lie there and let him move me around into whatever position he wanted me.. Then before breakfast, which I was more awake for after taking my pain killers. Usually after breakfast too. Then we would shower and go out for the day. Never a dull moment with Goldfinch! Perhaps you understand one of the reasons why I am missing him soooooooo much!!! I swear I wanted him for more than his body!! He has been amazing for me! In so many ways.
When I was at his man-cave…aaaaah! I loved making love within the man-cave…yes, my point is, I don’t think any words were ever involved. I can’t remember any verbal preamble. We just started as soon as we were in private…and making love was a major part of the weekends we spent together. We both understood each other perfectly well without any words. Once we were alone, it did not take long before we were making love.
I am just annoying you by writing about something without telling you what it is aren’t I!! It’s just a but too personal, and I don’t think you would understand. There are so many things he did that I found incredibly romantic. And I will admit I think sometimes that he may not have intended to be as romantic as it came across. I think he just knows how to treat a woman.
I was full of a cold and he had taken me to a beautiful location to walk in the freezing cold air, not realizing how ill I was. Although he certainly had ways to keep me warm 😉 my cold became worse and worse during the day. So when we entered a restaurant that evening, he spotted a table near to the fireplace. Without even asking a waiter, he just grabbed the table and dragged it over to the fireplace and sat me down there. Oh my goodness I was in love.
Oh…it depends. I like variety. So I was always trying to cook something for Goldfinch that I had not made before. I am not a brilliant cook, but I am alright. He was always very nice about my cooking. I made all sorts. The last meal I made for Goldfinch was roast lamb, with pomme puree, buttered leaks, garlickly longstem broccoli. and honey roasted carrots. Oh no, sorry my mistake, that was not the last meal. I made breakfast the following morning which was shakshuka.
I remember every meal I cooked for him, every cake I baked for him. I loved baking cakes for him. I could not help myself! I was always looking for new recipes that I hoped he would like. One evening in spring last year, he texted me to say he he had been in London for work and asked if he could come over and make love to me. By the time he arrived I had baked a cake! I just loved feeding him! I think he has lost weight since he has been back in Australia.
I think Goldfinch certainly did make my heart pound and melt. I was very comfortable with him and glad he was with me, but I always knew that he was leaving. I knew from the night I met him that he was going to return to Adelaide. He thought that would be spring 2018, but the project he was working on fell behind schedule. By the time late summer 2018 came, I was deeply in love with him, and then my heart began to ache because I knew how much I was going to struggle when he left. That’s when my leaky eye syndrome started!
This past week has just reinforced to me how much I love Goldfinch. I went on two dates with another man, and although that other man is a nice person, I did not enjoy it. I was not comfortable. I felt sick. I am not ready to start a relationship with someone else.
Which reminds me…do you think a pocket watch with an enscription (maybe a photo too) is a bit cliché? I even thought I could ask him, if when he is back in Adelaide, can he keep it set to GMT, so he knows what time it is in London, England. I passed a jewellers today with some stunning pocket watches and it made me start wondering if I should take a look at how many pennies I have in my piggy bank? But I do not want to give him something tacky. Is a pocket watch with an inscription tacky? Will he want to carry a pocket watch round? Maybe it would lie dusty and forgotten in some drawer full of old trinkets and bits and bobs?
For the past few years my family and friends (friends who have been loyal to me and were never fond of him anyway), have been telling me what they think of him…what they think I should think of him. It is other people that labelled him a bully and forced me to take a sober look at what he was doing. I can see what he has done was wrong. I can see I was bullied – taunted by hundreds, cruel jokes and rumours spread by thousands, perhaps more. Yes, I admit, he caused me trouble on a scale I have never had to deal with before.
There we go, I am going to spread it out like butter on hot toast, right to every crust edge and into the corners and let it soak in: I LOVE HIM!
Since then, I have had a problem. My heart has pretty much been beating for him ever since. He is both the best thing and the very worst thing that ever happened to me. The one I’ll never forget.
that my heart knows he is leaving. He is going home. Goldfinch is going to fly away home. Yes, I will miss him profoundly, but I will forget Goldfinch, eventually. I won’t ever forget my ex-flatmate. Goldfinch is not trying to make me love him more than any other man. Which is a good thing, because he would fail.
How complicated can it be?…he just needs to convey something that appears like sorrow for what happened between he and I. I would have been content with a little scrap note or a text message, saying “SORRY”. I am not expecting an elaborate explanation and in no way do I hold him responsible for what happened to me in the park. I think all possibilities of a romance have long ago been blown to smithereens. It is completely beside the point that he is the only man I have ever thought I could be married to.
surges of love and adoration was bound to produce a drastic effect. I took half of my savings out of my bank account and stuffed it into an envelope. I wrote a card and disguised my hand-writing, the message was not too emotional – it said something like “Well done – proud of you!” and I signed it G.L.H. Which are not my initials – they those letters do stand for something but I did not think he would remember. In fact, I was counting on it. If he knew the money was from me, I don’t think he would have been able to accept it. It was a stupid thing to do really. He does not need my money, but I would give the other half of my savings gladly, and everything I owned to feel at peace with him.
I know his faults, goodness, I lived with him and he was hard work! I know he is a noisy, messy pup. I know he seems to believe in the magic bin fairy. But life has never been the same since I moved out of that flat. To clean up after a man who is rude to you and to still love him…aaaah – I would give anything to be able to wash his dishes again!
Caramel 