[jerf]

Yeah. It's amazing how much good you can do for someone just listening to them. It's "rubber duck debugging" in our industry, but the principle can be applied to your general life too.

It's also amazing how much good you can do for someone by just listening to them for a bit, and then deploying the correct platitude. No originality, no great wisdom, just the right thing said at the right time, from someone whom the listener doesn't have years of emotional callouses, defenses, and preconceptions built up to prevent them from hearing the simplest of words without hearing the echos of years past.

With a bit more effort you can do even better, of course; I'm not trying to oversell the goodness. I'm saying the bang for the buck can be surprisingly good for people.