Listen Here

I'm not sure who wrote this, but I absolutely love it!  I was a senior in high school going through something that seemed to me like it was the end of the world.  It wasn't really.  To be honest, I don't remember what it even was.  That tells you how important it was in the big picture.  But every time an adult gave me the advice "5 years from now this won't even matter" I wanted to punch them in the face.  They were right.  But man that made me feel insignificant!  I knew it probably wasn't the most important thing in the world.... but I also knew it was something that was a big deal to me.  It may have looked and sounded like fluff to other people, but to me, it wasn't.  

I was talking to the principal at our seminary about it one day and he said something that has stuck with me ever since.... "It may not be the end of the world.  But maybe, today, to you, it is."  The fact that he acknowledged that my "problem" (whatever it was or wasn't) was something worth fretting over - or at least that I wasn't a complete moron for doing so - meant the world to me!  It allowed me to stop worrying about whether or not it was even a real problem and to wrap my head around how I really felt about it.

I've tried to use this same philosophy with other people I interact with.  While I do believe that a huge part of my job as a parent is to help my children recognize which things in their lives are of greatest importance, I also believe that it isn't my job to tell anyone else how to feel.  My job is to be supportive.  To listen.  To love them.