Listen to other people tell their story, but don't believe them.

Host: The night was quiet except for the soft buzz of the neon sign outside — a broken word flickering in blue and white: Café Solace. The rain had stopped an hour ago, but the pavement still glistened, catching reflections of the streetlights like tiny, trapped universes.

Inside, the café breathed in whispers — the low murmur of strangers, the faint sound of a jazz record, the rhythmic clink of cups against saucers. The air was thick with the smell of roasted coffee, rain-soaked wool, and unspoken things.

At a table near the window, Jack sat, half-shadowed, turning a small spoon in his cup without drinking. Across from him, Jeeny watched the street — her eyes distant, as if they were following the ghosts of other people’s stories drifting past in the reflection.

Behind them, on the chalkboard wall, someone had written in white chalk:
“Listen to other people tell their story, but don’t believe them. You know that it’s just a story that is only true for them, but listen because the communication can be wonderful.” — Don Miguel Ruiz.

Jeeny: “You ever think about how many stories are happening right now — in this café, this city, this second? Every person sitting here is a whole world.”

Jack: “Yeah. And every world thinks it’s the center of the universe.”

Host: His tone carried that familiar dryness — that skeptical edge that had long been his armor. Jeeny smiled faintly, stirring her coffee with slow, deliberate motion, her face calm but her eyes alive with quiet heat.

Jeeny: “You don’t believe in other people’s stories, do you?”

Jack: “I don’t even believe my own half the time.”

Jeeny: “Why?”

Jack: “Because they change. Stories, people — they’re all just edited memories. Today’s truth becomes tomorrow’s revision.”

Jeeny: “That’s exactly what makes them beautiful.”

Jack: “No. That’s what makes them unreliable.”

Host: The light from the window painted their faces in different tones — Jack in muted silver, Jeeny in soft amber. Between them, the table was scattered with two notebooks, a phone, and a half-eaten slice of cake that neither had touched in an hour.

Jeeny: “You see, Jack, that’s your problem. You’re obsessed with truth when you should be in love with meaning.”

Jack: “Truth is meaning.”

Jeeny: “No. Truth is fact. Meaning is feeling. Ruiz wasn’t saying we should reject other people’s stories — he meant that we should listen without surrendering ourselves to them. Every story is true for someone. It doesn’t have to be true for you.”

Jack: “So, empathy without gullibility.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Listening as art, not obligation.”

Host: She leaned back, her fingers tracing the rim of her cup. The café’s soft music rose, a lonely saxophone filling the spaces between their sentences. Outside, a man laughed too loudly on the street, his voice echoing into the wet night — another story, briefly intersecting with theirs.

Jack: “You know what I hate? When people tell you their pain and call it truth. As if the world owes their suffering universal meaning. I’ve heard too many stories like that — each one convinced it’s the only one that matters.”

Jeeny: “But isn’t that the essence of being human? We believe our stories because it’s the only way we can bear to live them. Even lies serve a purpose. They protect the parts of us that aren’t ready for truth yet.”

Jack: “So, self-deception is survival?”

Jeeny: “Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, it’s grace.”

Host: Her words floated between them like smoke — visible, delicate, but impossible to hold. Jack stared into his cup, his reflection warped by the rippling surface. His jaw tightened as if wrestling with something inside.

Jack: “When my brother died, everyone told me their stories of grief. How they ‘understood.’ How they’d ‘been there.’ Each one trying to comfort me with borrowed emotion. But none of it meant anything. Their stories weren’t mine. They couldn’t be.”

Jeeny: “I know.”

Jack: “No, you don’t. You can listen, but you can’t know. That’s why I stopped believing in other people’s stories. They always end up being mirrors pretending to be windows.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But mirrors show you something too. Even if it’s just yourself.”

Host: The rain began again, softly tapping against the glass. A shadow moved across the window — the passing shape of a stranger with an umbrella — and for a second, the reflection of Jack and Jeeny blurred into one.

Jeeny: “When I was seventeen, my mother used to tell me stories about her youth — the things she regretted, the loves she lost, the choices she made. I thought she was just trying to warn me. But later I realized she was trying to stay alive through my listening. Sometimes we tell stories not to teach, but to be remembered.”

Jack: “And you believed her?”

Jeeny: “No. But I heard her. There’s a difference.”

Jack: “You really think listening is enough?”

Jeeny: “I think it’s everything. Most people don’t want to be understood. They just want to be heard — and not judged.”

Host: Jack’s eyes softened. For the first time that night, the hard edges of cynicism began to fade. He rubbed his thumb over the lip of his cup, lost in thought.

Jack: “So you listen to everyone, even knowing they’re probably lying to themselves?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because even lies reveal something true — if you listen deeply enough.”

Jack: “Like what?”

Jeeny: “Fear. Hope. The shape of what they wish were real.”

Host: The rain outside intensified, a slow crescendo that filled the room like applause for something unseen. The lights flickered once, briefly plunging the café into shadow, then steadied again.

Jack: “You know, I envy that — the way you can listen without losing yourself. I hear someone’s story, and it eats into me. Their pain, their confusion — I carry it like it’s mine.”

Jeeny: “Then you’re not listening, Jack. You’re merging. Listening isn’t absorption. It’s witnessing.”

Jack: “That sounds cold.”

Jeeny: “No. It’s love with boundaries.”

Host: Her voice was barely above a whisper now, but it carried more weight than any argument. Jack looked at her — really looked — and for a moment, he saw not softness, but strength disguised as gentleness.

Jeeny: “You know why Ruiz said the communication can be wonderful? Because it’s not about agreement. It’s about connection — that brief moment when two people touch stories and something electric passes between them. That’s what we’re built for.”

Jack: “And what if the stories contradict each other?”

Jeeny: “Then they form harmony. Dissonant, imperfect harmony. That’s the sound of humanity.”

Host: Outside, a car passed slowly through the puddles, the headlights streaking across the café’s ceiling. The sound was almost musical — a soft rhythm underscoring the truth she had just spoken.

Jack: “You ever think that’s all we are? A collection of half-true stories pretending to make sense?”

Jeeny: “That’s exactly what we are. But the pretending — that’s what makes life bearable. The beauty isn’t in the truth of the story; it’s in the sharing of it.”

Jack: “So the value isn’t in the fact, but in the feeling.”

Jeeny: “Now you’re listening.”

Host: The clock on the wall ticked softly. Around them, conversations rose and fell — a symphony of human noise, hundreds of stories colliding, none entirely true, all entirely real.

Jack leaned back in his chair, his eyes thoughtful now, almost calm.

Jack: “Maybe you’re right. Maybe believing isn’t the point. Maybe the point is that we keep listening — not to fix, not to verify, but just to understand what it means to be alive at the same time as someone else.”

Jeeny: “That’s it. That’s the whole thing. Listening as communion.”

Jack: “And communication as forgiveness.”

Jeeny: “Beautiful, isn’t it? All these half-truths keeping us together.”

Host: The rain began to slow, the sound turning from rhythm to whisper. The café lights dimmed slightly as the hour grew late. Jeeny smiled — soft, quiet, knowing. Jack nodded, as though some private storm inside him had finally eased.

They sat there in silence, two people who understood that truth was too small to contain the human heart. Outside, the streets shone with reflected light, and every puddle carried the story of the sky above it — distorted, imperfect, but still beautiful.

As the camera pulled back, their table became just one in a sea of faces, voices, and dreams. All of them talking, all of them listening — each story both a lie and a prayer.

And on the chalkboard, Ruiz’s words glowed faintly in the half-light, blurred but eternal:

“Listen to other people tell their story, but don’t believe them... the communication can be wonderful.”

Because in the end, we don’t listen to find truth.
We listen to remember that we’re not alone.