Working on my laptop in a coffee shop in Cambodia I wasn’t listening but it wasn’t noise, my normal excuse for a loss of focus, that distracted me. This time it was movement caught out of the corner of my eye and what a great distraction it was. Two tables had been pushed together for a group who were providing such an emotive display through hand signals that I was fascinated.
There was smiling, laughing, and rising out of chairs. Something had got these people so excited they were all speaking at once, over the top of each other and all clamoring to have what they had to say, listened to.
They were a group of deaf people and although there was no sound, the excitement of the group was wonderfully obvious. It made me realize that even though the need to be heard wasn’t part of the equation, the desire to voice one’s thoughts and to be valued enough to be listened to is fundamental, for all of us.
The skill of listening, really listening whereby we process what we are hearing into some form of substance a.k.a an idea in our mind, is a skill we are all eager to receive the benefit of but which we are not as generous, or is it capable? of providing.
“Do not listen with the intent to reply, but with the intent to understand”. Quote: Unknown.
Why are we so bad at listening?
Scientifically, it’s because we think way faster than we speak. Studies show that on average we speak at 125 words per minute. Meanwhile, the thinking part of our mind is running off ‘cheetah-like’ at 1000 words per minute.
Wow, big gap.
And so our minds sit there listening, bored while waiting for the speaker to catch up (which they never do) and so our minds fill the big gap or lag time with, what else?
Thinking.
So, the speaker meanders along at their snail’s pace, the person who is supposed to be listening gets proactive with thinking instead of listening. The active listener could, for example, be formulating ways to respond and/or provide solutions, while the not-actively-listening listener could be using their gap-filling time thinking about the delicious steak he’s having for dinner that night.
Would the ideal not be to utilize that ‘gap’ or time advantage more wisely and to the benefit of all? Lockdown our own preformed opinions; seek the idea behind the words, the facts, the emotion and learn the purpose or need beneath the surface-level meaning. And then, we might actually learn something.
“When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know, if you listen, you may learn something new”. Quote: Dalai Lama
That’s the ideal. Alas, the art of listening appears to be croaking even more under the strain of a world’s communication dominated by apps and a device’s screen. Previously, at least, there have been attempts at listening. But when one has the advantage of being snuggly encapsulated inside a device, even the art of pretending to listen has become redundant.
We are now free to let our eyes glaze over and scan our surroundings for more interesting stimuli because nobody’s going to catch us at it. You can even straight-out ignore our communication partner but watch out! You can only ignore for so long as a reply is expected, at some stage. Because modern listening does have its own loose set of expectations, things like clicking on ‘like’ if you are a true friend, is a prerequisite.
Well, I’m going to keep polishing up my listening skills, generally for the sake of the future of mankind and specifically for my friends. And in the meantime, will do like Rabbit from Winnie-the-Pooh suggests, and, be patient.
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