Both sides of the story

A neighbourhood peace is shattered it's the middle of the night
young faces hide in the shadows,
while they watch their mother and father fight
he says she's been unfaithful, she says her love for him has gone
and the brother shrugs to his sister and says "looks like it's just us from now on"
We always need to hear both sides of the story

- Both sides of the story - Phil Collins -

Once I listened to my friend (say his name is A) telling me about his conflict with another friend (say B). I listened to him, and I emphatised with him, like all good listeners do, and I thought 'oh A is correct, B is wrong'.

Then on another occasion, B told me his side of the story. Again I empathised with him and thought 'hmm, B is correct and A is wrong'

And then I thought 'hey, how come I change my opinion like that, is it just me and my consistent inconsistency :P ?'

When I get to hear both sides of the story, often I see that it is just a matter of miscommunication or misunderstanding. But I also observe that when we have misunderstanding, often our pride tell us not to listen to the other party's opinion and just keep on insisting that 'I'm right and (s)he's wrong'. Moreover, when prejudice and prior dislike are there between them, then there will be no way of admitting 'yes, you're right, sorry'.

Most of the times I only get to hear from one party, and I wonder, how would the other side tell me his version of the situation. Or maybe it's not that important at all. I'm not a judge who have to decide on their case. What's important for me to do is just to let him/her get it out of their chest and be a good listener and not taking any side. It's their problem anyway....

I remember when I was staying in a boarding house, A told B that she hated C because of this and that. Then B hated C too because B agreed with A that C is sooo awfully bad. Then when A and C came to a good term again, B and C would still disliked each other... funny isn't it. So that's why it's better not to take side.

* I was a bit depressed and wanting self-confidence as a child, my dream was to become a psycholog to be able to help myself, but then I decided to study engineering instead because it takes so long time to graduate from the faculty of psychology. I compensated it by reading popular psychology books. It helps me to develop myself, I think. So.... this wannabe-psycholog likes to try and analyse human's mind... *