Problem-Solution Exercise Directions: Read the following excerpt and then fill the chart on the next page. Lend an Ear Your friend's hushand may have heen downsized out of job, just like your own, but no two families have identical bank accounts, severance packages or backup pluns. - Roberta Elinoff- • Saying "I feel your pain" also can be a prelude to offering advice "Here's what 1 did, and here's what you should do." But when a car trip takes three times as long as it should, or your child runs a high fever in the middle of the night, do you really want to hear how your friend coped with a similar situation? Can you listenreally listen? I My in-laws had just returned from a harrowing drive back to New York City after wintering in Florida. "The first time the car broke down we were somewhere in North Carol- ma." my mother in-law told me over the phone. "We had it fixed, and then it stalled gain in Delaware. But the worst was on the Verrazano Bridge during What we all hope for when we're feeling low or nash hour. It seemed as if we'd never get home." 1 "That sounds horrible," 1 said, ready to launch into my own horror story when my car stalled at listen. This ahility to be with someone in her pain 9:30 p. m. in a deserted mall parking kat. agitated or wikdly happy is to find a friend who SUunds as if she has all the time in the world to or happiness is the comerstone of genuine empathy. Fortunately, empathy is eminently easy to lean. Ever since the conversation with my mother-in- law, for example, I've repressed my impulse to interrupt a friend when she confides in me. I'm 3 But someone knocked at her door, so she had to say good-bye. "Thank you for listening." she added, "but thank you most of all for not telling me your worst car story." + My cheeks burning. I hung up. In the days learning to follow the other person's lead, paying abead I found myself thinking about the wisdom of attention to hody language, facial expressions, tone ber parting words. s I can't count the number of times I've begun to complain - ahouit a fight with my son, a prufession empathy when I'm the beneficiary. The other day I al disappointment or even car problems - only to called a friend to complain that I was foeling have my friend cut me off with, "The same thing nervous and couldn't concentrate. "Want to tell me just happened to me" • Suddenly we're talking about her ungrateful kid, her lousy boss, her leaky fuel line. And I'm left nodding y head in all the right places, tomorrow," she said. Now that's empathy. worndering if we haven't all come doown with a bad case of emotional attention deficit disorder, of voice and what's left unsaid. 12 I'm also more likely to recognize and appreciate about it?" she offered. So I rambled on for a while s Finally. I thanked her for listening, and asked bow she was feeling. "We can talk about me 4 We don't always want answers or advice. Sometimes we just want company. * I's casy to see how this version of gmpathy- "I know just how you feel and I can prove it - gets confused with the real thing. Nothing's more natural than trying to soothe an apprehensive stalld (r. pot delayed friend with assurances that she's not alone. (fim Reader Diget, April 2000) Enynhy ( ability to identify with and understand sochady elie's foclings and difficuhies . But calamities resemble one another only from afar, up elose they're as unique as fingerprints. Complete the following SPSIE chart with information from the above reading text. Situation Problemts) Solution(s) Implicution(s)