Just because you can hear doesn’t mean that you are
listening.
Throughout the first month in the semester we have discussed
that listening is a crucial and yet understudied part of communication. We are constantly hearing things throughout
our day to day life. Anywhere you go we
are able to hear things, whether we listen to those things or not is an
entirely different topic. Hearing is the physical act of noise entering our
ears and being processed by our brain.
Listening is our ability to hear that noise and genuinely understand or process. Hearing is much more natural than listening
and sometimes we have to remind ourselves to listen. Hearing is something that we can always do
but actually listening to what we hear is the real challenge.
The example that is very prevalent in American’s lives right
now is the presidential election. I
strongly believe that a huge part of the issues that America is facing and is
going to face is everybody’s lack of ability to listen. Something that is really big in the news
right now is the presidential debate. I
didn’t watch the debate for very long because it was so argumentative and
petty. I think that there is something
to be said for the people who have different view points and different stances
on an issue yet are able to respect each other enough to listen to what the other
one has to say. If politicians and
leaders of this country would not just hear each other but truly listen as
oppose to just waiting for their turn to talk, I think that a lot more would
get done.
On a much smaller scale every individual would benefit from
practicing this trait. It is something
that I believe needs to be a conscience decision. I do not think it comes
naturally especially if we do not care what the other person is saying. Somebody’s ability to listen can often be
effected by context. If we agree with what
the person is saying or we are passionate about what they have to say we are
much more likely to listen to them and focus on what they are saying. The challenge comes when we are trying to
listen to somebody that we might disagree with or not like what they have to
say. Our culture can be selfish in this
way and communication can be effected by it.
As we have discussed, communication is something that is in all aspects
of life and effective communication stems from effective listening. There are lots of ways to be an effective
listener but there are just as many ways to be an ineffective listener and
people, especially political leaders, must consciously strive to be more
effective listeners.
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