Do you hear me?

Listening is an art. How many of us are good at listening? We probably think we are! Listening takes more than just nodding in agreement. Listening takes more than acknowledging act.  Listening requires us refraining from giving out our opinion too soon. Listening requires us asking some relevant questions. Listening requires a lot of patience. Listening requires us to understand the incoming message.

In fact listening is an important part of our lives. Yet, we often fail to do so. When we converse in conversation, we tend to want to dominate the conversation by telling our part and our part only. Especially when two people with different opinions are conversing, one party tends to want the other party to listen and submit to one's opinion. At the same time, one fails to listen to other party for his/her opinion. End result, not only, both parties still have different opinions, but also negative feeling toward each other.

--courtesy of justbereal77.blogspot.com

Someone that I used to work with once mentioned to me in the past, if we want our opinions to be heard, we need to first acknowledge others'. Otherwise no one is listening. Listening skill require us to acknowledge others and thoroughly understand others' opinion, then we would enable others to listen to us as well.

Some people claim that they could attend other business while listening to us. This has left us, the speakers, a very uncomfortable feeling, and at the same time they are sending the message that we are not important enough to receive their exclusive attention. The crucial skill of listening is not only listening but also letting others be heard.

Occasionally when one party is monopolizing the whole conversation for too long, leaving the other party feeling insecure of not having their turns of conversing. This may lead the other party to interrupt the conversation and causing competing conversing, which leaves no one to listen.

Let's pause for a moment and imagine the world without a listener. Can we imagine, if everyone is talking and no one is listening. The world would be such a chaotic place which we don't suppose that is the kind of place that we want to live in  Hopefully this blog would inspire us to pause once in awhile and lend our ears to others. We may in return find our opinions be heard. 

Until next stop,
Journey of Life