Say for example you heard negative comment about your chosen outfit for the Year-end party that your school will be having this weekend. Your friend told you to change outfit or else you’ll look weird. Or what if you heard someone saying that you’re not good in fashion? How are you going to react?
Listen. Let’s define the word listen. It is like a command that needs a lot of attention. When you hear someone calls your name. You’ll automatically look to that someone. When, where, why and to whom are we going to listen? Do we have to listen all the time? But I remember a quote saying, “If we know how to listen, we will benefit even to those who speak badly”. True isn’t it?
Sometimes it’s so hard to accept the truth especially if we heard negative statements from other people. We want suggestions but do we want truth?
Your reaction towards what you’ve heard is more important than just listen. Even if we heard negative comment we can always turn that into positive. I know it’s hard to comprehend so I’ll state a situation. A recent experience during my stay in Japan, I had this coworker whom everybody hates to work with. She really works fast and no one can work as fast as she can. Then one day, I was assigned to work with her in a particular area. I was so excited but worried at the same time. What if I couldn’t meet her expectations? What if we couldn’t reach our quota? But I have no choice; I just need to give my best. Thankfully, we were able to reach our quota before lunch so we can take our time doing the remaining parts. We were talking then suddenly she mentioned the issues regarding her speed at work. That no one wants to work with her. She told me that if they don’t like working with her because she’s quite fast, she doesn’t want to work with them either because they are too slow. Make sense. She’s a little mad though.
That statement encourages me to just give my best and don’t mind others’ opinion because it doesn’t matter as long as you’re not trying to let others down.
Let’s go back to the first paragraph, true friends will tell you the truth. They don’t want you to look weird that’s why they told you to change your outfit. See? There’s no such thing as positive or negative comments. It’s you who will decide on how you will take it. You just need to LISTEN.
By: Joanna Charisma C. Lomibao | Balanga, Bataan
