Listeners are scarce. Nobody wants to listen. We don’t listen to our spouses, parents, friends, kids, subordinates, those we love and more importantly those we don’t. Women are better listeners than men and that’s the reason they are more fun and have a reservoir of emotional capacity which makes people feel mentally rested better than men can.
Listeners are scarce these days. Everyone wants to talk and wants to be heard; nobody wants to hear; all this makes the whole situation quite complex.
If we really and truly try to understand, we will be convinced that it’s not the talking but listening that makes us what we are or want to be. Listeners make for better and dependable friends; by pouring hearts out to listener friends, colleagues and friends lighten their hearts and heads which clear their minds and take better decisions and actions.
We don’t seek advice as much as we seek attention of our listeners; because finally most of us know what’s good and feasible for us and are capable of taking the risk of making a decision for ourselves and taking the responsibility for it. If our `hear me out’ needs are attended to, the journey becomes simpler. And to be able to help our friend or child to become emotionally stronger, capable of taking his/her own decisions, is worth the effort it takes to be patient and listen.
Listening is also our opportunity to grow and evolve as it gives us an insight into people’s psyche. We can peek into human mind and understand how the brain works in different situations. The 3rd party view and understanding of the situation helps us to become more objective, therefore better companions, partners, parents, and human beings. It improves and repairs our relationships with spouses, lovers, relatives, children, friends, and colleagues.
Listening mends relationships: If we start observing and looking around, we will find many incidences where genuine listening has revived many a broken friendships and dried up relationships. And we already know of many tragic stories of parents and their kids who don’t understand each other. That’s because as kids children never felts valued as they were never listened to and now that they have grown up and have a voice of their own they don’t listen to or try to understand their parents.
Not listening to leads to boredom and sometimes premature death of a love; of a relation that could have blossomed. Unless you listen you can’t know anybody. Learn to listen when somebody is talking. Learn to listen with complete, absorbed, uncritical sympathy, without feeling bored or impatient, only then can you win someone’s trust, make friend for life, have a happy marriage, and above everything a fulfilling life!
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