Listening is rare. There are certain people to whom we feel we can talk because they have such a deep capacity for hearing, not just our words, but hearing us as a person. They enable us to communicate on a level we've never reached before. They enable us to be as we've never been before.

We will never truly know ourselves unless we find people who can listen, who can enable us to emerge, to come out of ourselves, to discover who we are. We cannot discover ourselves by ourselves.

" Note the words "there are certain people… who enable us to be as we have never been before." Those are the people we need most.

Consider these questions: Who coaches you? What older, wiser, and more experienced person stands on the sidelines of your life and watches with the big picture in mind? A coach doesn't try to run the race for you. No, he sets the standard for the race and makes a judgment on your performance. Who does this for you? Who stretches your mind? Who makes you wince as they expose the many faces of your ignorance?; who will not let you get away with Spiritual and intellectual superficiality? Who listens to and encourages your dreams? Dreams are not intellectual propositions that must be proven. They are the work of visionaries; they are out-of-the-box, frequently awful and occasionally good. These are the folks who, when others laugh and say you're trying to build castles in the air, remind you that God "calls those things which be not, as though they are" These are the people you need.

A very important question, it is great to have people who can listen to you, but do you give a listening ear? Are you there for someone? Live to Give.

If you don't have people around you who motivate you in the direction of your dreams and believe in you, then your so called 'desire' will remain a wish. Let us cultivate the Art of Listening.