Stuart Woods Books

A Mind’s Journey
What made me different from my siblings as I was growing up, was that I preferred to have a carefree and very often, quite reckless attitude towards life. While my elder sister and my little brother did their homework at home, I was out chasing the stray dogs and getting myself all messed up, with the neighborhood kids. My father always said I was a waste of life, but my mother always defended me saying I would make the whole family proud one day. When you’re 9, you don’t really think about making the family proud. All I could think of was when I’d get to go out and play again. But suddenly, in the summer of ’96, I came home to a rude shock. My father had decided to leave us and settle down with another woman, who he claimed he loved. My mother refused to hand us over to him and he looked visibly relieved. You see, by now, I was well past my ‘always out in the sun phase’. I had begun to look at people, and begun observing their facial expressions and begun to formulate stories and situations that they were in. More often than not, I was right about what they were thinking as well.

Then on this day, my mother was not only heartbroken that her husband had decided to leave her, she was absolutely terrified at the prospect of having to raise three kids alone. All I could do, at the tender age of 13 was give my mother a shoulder to cry on. I did all the house work that I could manage along with my siblings, before mum got home from work. Then we all sat and had dinner together and recounted our day’s activities. Talking, I realized then, has a very therapeutic effect on people. Whether it’s about the tiniest incident or a life changing one, you actually feel better when you talk to someone about it. But even greater than talking is the art of active listening. When you actively listen to someone, you give them their full attention and there’s no better feeling than having someone giving you their undivided attention. I tried it out with many people, friends, relatives, even random strangers sometimes. I realized that I had the ability to make people feel better by just listening and talking to them. It got me interested in the psychology of the human mind. Read the rest of this entry »