The Need To Be Heard

Someone to tell it to is one of the fundamental needs of human beings.

     Miles Franklin

We all have it, this need.  We all need to be heard, to know that we matter, to believe that others are listening and are aware of our lives.  If life’s meaning, ultimately, is about the relationships we form and nurture, then those relationships only grow when our stories are shared.

 It’s why, for example, social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, among a growing number of others, are so popular.  They are avenues for sharing, for telling stories.  They fulfill our need to be heard, to give voice to our lives.  They allow us to express ourselves and to know that our stories are not lost.

 And that is good.

 They help to fulfill our need.

 But … are they really enough?  

 It seems, sometimes, that they are often used in place of real, human, face-to-face interaction.   People post all kinds of revealing, intimate details of their lives to scores of absolute strangers, and we wonder,

 “Is there no one in their lives with whom they can share these things?” 

 Things that are perhaps better left to greater privacy.  Things that deserve deeper discussions rather than shallow hit and run bursts. 

 We talk with people every day who yearn for intimacy and depth in their relationships.   While social media can connect us, it isn’t necessarily equipped to bind us more deeply, more closely.  Quick statements and “bumper sticker” posts don’t usually solve problems or address many needs.  Like most snack foods, they satisfy only for a short time, leaving us hungering for something richer, something more. 

 There is a hunger for us to be heard.  There is a need for our lives to have meaning.  There is a yearning for our stories to be told. 

 Do we have people in our lives to whom we can really tell our stories.  Are there people whom we can trust to listen to our stories without judgment or agenda, except for an agenda that is simply about loving us unconditionally?   To tell our stories with all their chapters, twists and turns, complications, and mysteries?  To open our lives to shine light on them, a light that will drive the dread of darkness away?

Photo by Dylann Hendricks | 딜란 on Unsplash