How The Return Of a Hat Can Mean Countless Things

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Let’s say one day amid a bustling town square, three strangers stood not far from each other and witnessed a five-year-old girl hand an elderly man she didn’t know the hat he’d just dropped by accident onto the sidewalk. The old man smiled wide and patted her head, thanking her. The small child smiled back sheepishly and took hold of her mother’s hand. Then, as random encounters often go, the two parties walked their separate ways.

Mandy

Let’s say the first onlooker of the three is Mandy, a thirty-five-year-old woman, who got tears in her eyes watching this. Her beloved grandfather had just passed away and the exchange between girl and old man reminded her of the times she’d spent with her grandfather growing up. He was a gentle person, and she was bereft over his death. To see an innocent child help a stranger on the sidewalk was a needed lift to her grieving heart, and she held onto it for a moment with gratitude. That’s beautiful, she thought. Then she turned and walked on.

Brian

Let’s say the second onlooker, Brian, is a father of three young daughters who was stopped in his tracks when he noticed the small girl bend to retrieve the old man’s hat. She was no older than his middle child, Maisy, who’d recently miraculously grabbed hold of a balloon that wafted past her mobility walker. Maisy then handed it with enormous effort to her younger sister who’d been sobbing because Peppa the Pig drawn on top of her birthday cake was now in slices on paper plates. Maisy was unable to do many physical things, but helping was one thing she worked her heart out to accomplish. That’s beautiful, Brian thought as he watched the child, thinking of his own, then he moved on.

June

The third onlooker will be June, a woman close in age to the elderly man, who turned to see more fully what was going on. She eyed the girl and the man, then her gaze settled on the man’s hat. It was the same color yellow as the hat she’d been given years ago as a special thanks for her volunteer work with a foster care organization. Looking past the hat, June daydreamed about the days when she read to children in transition every weekend on the worn-out couch in the organization’s office. When she snapped back to the scene, she saw the man place the hat back on his head. That’s beautiful, June said to herself, thinking of the circle of human experience.

If we asked these onlookers what they just experienced, they’d each describe a somewhat similar scene. Then each of us would derive our own interpretation from their description. It’s a sweet thing — a child helping an older person — but the way we see that sweetness, the background music of it in our minds — its meaning — varies in as many ways as there are interpreters.

This is one tiny example of why we can’t truly know where someone is coming from. We can in general, but we’ll never know each other’s nuanced understanding.

Maybe this difference is not so consequential in happy times, however, it might be impactful during difficult ones. When we’re challenged, distraught, or scared, the way others see our troubles is key to how they interact with us. When times are tough, we yearn for someone to come to us where we are and not where they assume we are or where they think we should be.

And it’s hard to be there for someone if we misconstrue. Understanding someone’s story is helpful, but their story will run through our filter and become a story flavored with our own experiences. It’s difficult to filter it otherwise.

This has been the hardest thing about growing as a coach for me — staying out of my head and only listening to what comes from someone else’s. I hear words, voice inflection, and pauses, and see the movements of the body. That helps me to ask questions that will sometimes guide that person to a more productive interpretation of their world. But how a question helps them, or the nuanced way they shift their worldview — that will be for them to know.

Back to the little girl, the mother, and the man with the hat. None of us know how that interaction felt to each of them. It could have been a positive experience or not at all. Too many possibilities are in play for us to know as bystanders.

Less is in play with the loved ones in our lives because we’ve been around to see some of their lives. But at some point, there comes a crossroad that separates what we know about their interior world, and what we don’t. This is the inflection point where we can drop the need to run to our interpretation of their troubles, and simply stand next to them where they happen to be.

And just listen.