Listen to me.....just listen!

I call myself (and have been called) a chaos magnet. It sounds like a bad thing, but it's all in your perspective. I have this "aura" about me that seems to welcome other people's misery. I'm not trying to say that I'm some kind of martyr or anything. It's just that I've often had total strangers start talking to me about their problems. I once said "How are you?" to a toll booth guy. His answer was, "To tell you the truth, I'd be better off dead." I told him that I was sorry, then took off (as there was an entire line of cars behind me). One time I was looking at shoes in Penney's and a woman came up to me and said that she had a brain tumor and had about three weeks to live. We stood and talked for about an hour. She gave me her number, but I never called her. I probably should have, but I just couldn't. I used to think that people could sense my eagerness to please everyone, a trait that I consider self-serving. Maybe it's true, but it's ok. The bottom line is that people just want to be heard. They want to be valued. I guess people just sense that I will listen. The reasons why I listen don't matter to them, just that I'm listening. It's what we all want. Hey...did anybody hear me?