I’ve been crying all day;” is what the desperate text said. It came from a young friend of mine. I texted her back, “Write about it and send it to me.” She replied right away: “OK, I will.” My response: “Try to smile, it makes writing easier.” Her swift response: “OK, I’ll try.”

     Sometimes we cry and don’t know why. Our feelings are all in a jumble. Like a bowl of noodles that are twisted in a mass that cannot seem to make any sense at all, we need to sit a quietly sort things out. We need to take one noodle at a time and patiently untangle it without breaking it and lay it on the table in an orderly fashion.

     When we get upset and “cry all day,” we are usually a bundle of confusion. We are not even sure why we’re crying. We think we know, but when we sit down and try to understand our tears, we learn that things are a whole lot more complex than we think they are.

     I am reminded of a lady who told me how she would be driving and would suddenly burst out in tears and “I don’t even know why.” She had all kinds of complaints and problems, many of them centering on one person. So I asked her to sit and write them down, even briefly, like in bullet form. Just one liner so we could then arrange a meeting with the one who was causing her so much misery.

     An hour later, her page was still empty. “I can’t write anything. My mind is blank,” she said. “But you spent a couple of hours yesterday telling me all about your problems,” I countered. “I know, but I just can’t do it,” she replied.

     Well, it turned out that her “black” mind was caused by fear of meeting with her tormentor and having to talk about her issues face to face. I sent her back to her table and it took her a full day before she was able to complete her “list.”

     Often things are not what they seem to be. We do things and we don’t entirely understand why we do them. Like the man who dislikes a co-worker but can’t tell why. It turns out that he has a stunning resemblance to someone he hates with a fury. His officemate isn’t the problem, but an innocent bystander who gets hit by displaced aggression. And all because the angry guy cannot sort things out.

     We are more complex than we think we are and often what seems to be a simple matter isn’t at all simple. There are countless angles and dimensions to relationships. It takes a lot of maturity and character to make them work well whether they are about love, friendship or work related.

     When we get very upset, the wisest thing to do is to calm down and find a bit of quiet where we can sort things out. We get ourselves into trouble when we do and say things by following our instincts and emotions. It is amazing how much peace and quiet can do to resolve problems.