It is so surprising that sometimes we don’t really listen to what people say to us. It is surprising because we hear them but we don’t listen to them. Thinking over this distinction, I really got anxious to know how hearing is different from listening. Till I could really understand the difference, both of these words were synonyms for me.
Hearing is just a physical phenomenon. Whenever somebody spoke something to you and the sound waves generated reached you, you definitely heard whatever was said to you. However, you heard something, never means that you actually understood whatever was said. Paying attention to whatever you hear results into listening. Essentially, consciously using your mind to understand whatever is said is listening. After finding out the difference, I was quite happy to realize that what most of the times I do is listening. If I ask you how many times you listen instead of hearing, what would be you answer? I am sure most of you would also say listening.
Going deeper, I found that listening is not only hearing with attention. It is much more than that. Listening is hearing with full attention, without applying our mind. Most of the times, we listen to somebody, but we don’t listen with an empty mind with enough space to accommodate what all is spoken. We come with a lot of prejudices or pre conceived notions about the speaker or the subject on which he or she is talking. We pretend listening to the speaker, but deeper inside we keep a judge sitting, who is really dying to give judgement of right or wrong, truth or false or yes or no. That judge is always ready to give advices. Sometimes we even come prepared with a negative mind-set of proving the speaker wrong. Even if the speaker has done nothing wrong, the judge is ready to literally punish him or her.
I asked the same question again to myself, if I listen most of the times. This time the answer was NO. I listen but I don’t LISTEN. I am sure now most of you would also agree that you don’t LISTEN. Please notice that LISTENING is not listening without making any judgement. Whether we should make any judgement or not, is a different question. But, at the moment, what I am saying is judgements can be made later, when the conversation is over. LISTENING is listening without making any judgements at the time when conversation is taking places.
Fair enough, the main question is why should we really care and bother about LISTENING. So often we think that, for a relation to flourish, we need to say the right thing at the right time. Infect, at times unspoken words become so critical that they change the future. Often we regret that if we had said those words, our lives would have taken a different path. Sometimes, we just remain silent and silent, and it becomes too late. Sometimes it’s late to the point that listener leaves us emotionally, and sometimes it’s too late to the point that the listener leaves us physically too, infect leaving the life. Surly, it’s really important to speak the right thing at the right time. But we often forget the significance of listening.
Let’s look it the other way. Had you really listened, err.LISTENED what somebody wanted to say, your life would have been different too. When you listen, you listen to only what is spoken or not even that. But when you LISTEN, you LISTEN to not only what is spoken, but what is not spoken as well. Most of the times, we don’t really LISTEN to even the people who are dearest and closest to us. Had we really LISTENED to them, our relation with them would have flourished as well. Sometimes we get too late and do not LISTEN to them till the point comes when they really leave us and then we think that they never said to us anything. More are the chances that they did, but we never LISTENED to them.
So are you ready to LISTEN?
