Evoking emotions

As the old lady finished telling me her sad story, I realised that her story evoked in me the feeling of pity, and in that moment I reflected upon my own storytelling of hardship and heartache, and concluded that from now on I needed to evoke not pity, but its antidote in the form of shared insight and thus evoke feelings of relief, empathy, and respect.

Listening to someone who concludes negatively can be taxing. When we listen to someone, we often listen for the conclusion. We wait unwittingly for the punchline or the moral of the story. If the speaker ends his or her story with a great sigh, we feel disappointed that the story did not have a happy ending. We expect a conclusion, a lesson, or a laugh. After all, the listener will be seeking out consciously or subconsciously something that will inspire or motivate him or her, something new that he or she can add to her repertoire of facts or life lessons. 

We do not want to listen to someone moan or complain, unless they have a twist in their story, or we feel their character has developed from their trauma.  We want to be able to smile and feel encouraged at the end of listening to someone.