A Surprising Secret to Great Romances and Fantastic Friendships.
And good family relations, colleague connections, and neighbors.
Have you noticed that with many of the people you speak nowadays, most of them seem to have short attention spans?
Many of them might be quick to nod, seemingly listening, and then rapidly bringing the conversation right back around to them. “Oh, me too.” “I did that as well.” “Oh, you went to Maine? I own a home in Maine.” (Instead of, “Wow, how cool. Tell me more about your experience. What was it like for you?”).
A lot of people today, after seeming to listen for a handful of seconds, their eyes begin to wander. They might pick up their phone and type something for “sorry, just a minute” (despite this being incredibly rude and the ultimate form of dismissal, we have accepted this as “normal” and thus, apparently ok, which is why the behavior runs rampant).
Someone might read, maybe a paragraph or two of your article, and then feel entitled to comment on and even challenge it. This is the same thing as listening to one sentence or two of a person’s feelings, cutting them off, and then arguing with them as if you already know everything they were thinking and were going to say.
Most people today are not good listeners.
There is a good chance you too are one of them.
I used to be a terrible listener. And while I would not claim to be phenomenal at it (I absolutely have many moments in which I am still not great at it), I do think (and hope) that I’ve improved significantly in this area. That was not without much effort and learning, though.
Being a terrible listener is a major hindrance to emotionally deep, truly satisfying, connected relationships. Being a half-assed listener is a barrier to connection. It keeps you always, somewhat, at arm's length from each other. Not choosing (because yes, it is an active choice to listen and focus) to put in the effort (and yes, it takes some work) to be a good listener tells the other person all of the following: “I don’t really care. I’m not really that interested in you. I don’t actually respect you that much. I can’t be bothered. Other things are more important to me right now.”
