August Blog Post

Levi Butler
Comm 160--Christina Ivey

Over the course of my life, I have always believed that I have been a fairly good listener. I had been taught as a child that it is always mandatory to show people through proper body language and verbal ques that I am listening to whoever is speaking, and respecting what they have to say. In fact, because of this, I believe that I often overestimate how good of a listener I often am, and realize that I am missing key information that is being spoken by the other party. Why is it that I am not as good of a listener as believe? How might I fix this, and improve my listening altogether. 

I have learned in Comm. 160 that listening is a much more complicated process than simply nodding one's head and saying "mhm." It involves a much higher amount of give than take, and I also believe that many other people are under the same impression that I was under. 

Hear's the thing. 

There is a major difference between "hearing" and "listening." Hearing is a simple biological process with which any human can pick up a variety of sounds. For example, if I was near a baseball stadium and I heard fireworks going off in the distance. However, this does not mean that I was listening to the sounds at all. Listening is when there is an actual thought process happening within the mind of the listener, in response to what is being said. 

So if I want to be a good listener, all I need to do is think about what they say, right? In reality, it's still not that simple. There is a type of listening is which we all try to achieve, and then one that is even better. It involves all the qualities of listening, the active thought process, asking questions and commenting on what is being said to further the conversation, etc. However, one thing many of us forget when being active listeners is to have an empathic goal in mind, which essentially means that we are trying our best to put ourselves in the other's shoes, and see what they are saying from their perspective as well as ours. 

This is something I tend to be okay at, but often am lacking. An example of where I recently lacking in empathic listening was recently, while I was discussing my day with my younger brother. He told me about his day, and told me very excitedly that he had just saved up enough money to buy a computer. I immediately shut him down, and told him this was not something he needed, and recommended that he save up his money for college, which is only a few years off for him. What I had failed to consider was that he in fact had been saving for the computer for a long time, and was ecstatic that he had finally achieved his goal. While I may have had the most ethical perspective in my mind, I failed to employ empathy in my interaction with him, and may have actually put a small dent in our relationship by doing that. 

Yes, active and empathic listening are both crucial to our communication as human beings. If we were all to be a little more observant in our interactions with others, we could possibly avoid much of the conflict that we all enjoy on a daily basis. I am excited for this class: to employ all that I have already learned, and to learn more even still. 

-Levi Butler