Sometimes, listening is enough. At those times, listening is the only sensible thing to do. Cori Doerrfeld has brought this very important message to life in her book – “The Rabbit Listened”. It’s a simple story of a boy called Taylor. One day he decides to build something, he then goes on to build and then a bad incident brings everything crashing down. Taylor is horrified at what has happened. Doerrfeld then introduces animals one after the other who offer the common vents to Taylor. Nothing helps and then the Rabbit comes and just listens.

The illustrations in this book are wonderfully done. You can see the excitement, the effort, the triumph and the heartbreak of Taylor. When the animals come to offer the usual ways to vent out the frustration and Taylor doesn’t take cognizance – the way she has illustrated those animals going away is instructive in itself. It’s a short story and I won’t spoil it for you by paraphrasing it any more. But there are characters in the story which I will like to talk about. The beauty of these characters is that we all have each one of them, Taylor has each one of them. But none of them are us completely.

Has it ever happened to you that just after you have achieved a spectacular success, things have come crashing down? And if it has happened to you or to someone you know, you will recognize these characters.

The sympathetic one – “Oh, how horrible this is”

When something horrible happens and you are feeling miserable, the sympathetic ones will be there to support you. They will “help you” to identify the horrors that you have missed to see. They will make you talk about the bad thing and will try to make you see the horror from all the possible angles. If you have missed some aspect and were not feeling miserable due to that, they will make sure that you add that also to your list of misery. What happens when you refuse to listen to them? This is where Doerrfeld has been masterly in her illustrations. She has shown the reaction and what follows is my interpretation. Each one of you may have your own interpretation based on your experiences.

If you tell the sympathetic ones that you don’t need their help, they will leave – but will let you and everyone else who cares to listen know that they were just trying to be helpful and how ungrateful you are to refuse such help.

The angry one – “World is not fair, let’s get angry”

“C’mon be a man”. How can you sit there quietly and not rage against the injustice that has happened with you? You have to shout and let the world know that this was your dream that has come crashing down. Make them notice. And if you refuse to listen to them, they will leave angry. And will probably call you spineless as well.

The helpful one – “I know how to fix it”

Then there are the ones who always know how to make things right, only if you are ready to remember how you did it in the first place. They are the motivating kind who look past our misery and think that if you can remember how you did it, you can do it again. But if you don’t want the help, they will leave. And they may tell the world that you have lost your vigour. “No longer the same”.

The revengeful one – “Let’s break someone else’s”

There will be some who will point out how this is so unfair on you. Let’s find the culprit and make sure that he/she learns the lesson that is coming. How can they be happy when you are sad? Lets plan and lets plot and bring the world crashing down for someone else. And if you don’t listen to them – they will tell everyone that you got what you deserved. It was all your fault.

And then there are the ones who will tell you to laugh it all away, forget it all and throw away everything because its such a waste.

The one who listens – “…….”

But you are miserable and you don’t care for the advice that any of them is giving so freely. Then the Rabbit comes. He doesn’t do anything, doesn’t suggest a course of action. He is just there. When he has been there for long enough, you tell him to not go anywhere and then you mope, you rage, you think of making things right again, you laugh it off, you make evil plans of revenge, you decide to forget it all. And once you are done with your misery, you plan to rebuild. Not in revenge, not to make things right. You decide to rebuild because that is what you do. That is what you love doing. The Rabbit listens to your joy also.

When things go south for you, I hope you always have a Rabbit who will listen. When things go south for someone you care about, try to be the Rabbit. It is extremely difficult to be the Rabbit. There will always be solutions to other people problems, which will be obvious to you. But try to hold on, and just listen.

May we keep inspiring each other.