The importance of learning to listen, and the difference between listening and hearing.

My grandmother, on my father’s side, died in April, 1994. She was not well just before she left her earthly body, and she was confined to a hospital bed. My father remarked, after his last visit with her, that she had stopped talking. It wasn’t because she couldn’t speak; but she said, “Why speak, if no one is listening?” I have never forgotten those words. And I have thought often about the necessity of listening – truly listening.

We live in a world of a growing number of people, and part of our every-day lives involves interacting with those people – sharing ideas, and combining efforts in co-operative endeavours. Our very existence depends on our ability to communicate with others. Yet the first skill we need to acquire and strengthen, is the least practiced – listening. Hearing comes automatically, if you have two physically functioning ears. But listening is an action purposely performed, in order to ingest the sounds being sent to you. Without consciously paying attention to what our neighbor is saying, we cannot begin to know his heart, or feel his joys and pains. Too often, the selfish voice inside us screams so loudly above our neighbor's words, that we never lift our concerns outside of ourselves. We don’t understand his desperate tones, and we despise his tears. All too often a hurting, drowning, dying man walks away from a friend feeling empty still.

Talking is a wonderful way of sharing yourself with others; listening is a wonderful way of accepting others. We all want to be heard, but as soon as someone else speaks, we find an excuse not to listen.

I believe that, along with watching and doing, listening is a vital part of learning. I believe, too, that if we teach our children (by example) to listen, we will teach our children to learn. You see, everybody has an opinion; and to the individual, his opinion is the only sound or valuable one. But think of all that we cut ourselves off from, all that we deny ourselves, when we refuse to listen to, then explore the possibility of another opinion.

Just a thought…


copyright (c) JMStevens, 2001