Listen

DISCLAIMER- I wrote this piece for a New York Times contest. I did not win, but I am pleased with what I was able to produce. It isn't gold, but I believe it's worth a read.

It’s 2015, and humans are struggling with the basic linguistic skill of listening.

Listening is deeper than hearing. When you hear something, you don’t dissect it, pull it apart, or try to understand it. You hear it, and move on. Sort of like feeling gum underneath a school desk and pulling your hand away without an ounce of hesitation.

Hearing doesn't work well in a conversation setting. If I’m talking to one of my close friends and explaining to them that I've had a bad day, I expect them to try to understand why my day was bad. However, this isn't a perfect world and not everyone is going to listen to what you have to say.

Listening is hard work, you have to fully commit yourself to what another person is trying to explain to you.  Good listeners challenge themselves, and don’t walk away from a conversation with assumptions, because assumptions aren't good enough.

It’s rare to find people who actually listen. Most of the time, when conversing with my peers it’s like a big game of jeopardy. Contestants on jeopardy fight to be heard, in order to answer the question correctly. While jeopardy contestants use a buzzer, teenagers use their mouths.  

On average, we listen at a rate of 125-250 words a minute, but think at 1,000-3,000 words per minute. We don’t even listen to half the amount of words we think. This just goes to show that for every 125-250 words heard, it takes anywhere from 1,000-3,000 words to comprehend them.

We have two ears and one mouth for a reason. As effective communicators we must listen twice as much as we speak.

Great listening skills generate from people who care. And in this day and age, most people don’t. We silence our children with iPads, and remove ourselves from complex conversations with big words and scary realizations.

I consider myself a good listener. When people are venting to me, I look for specific aspects of the story to keep the conversation flowing. I’m not one to say, “I’ll always be there for you,” and then hear your story just so I can leave you abandoned and alone.

As Henning Mankell says,  “What differentiates us from animals is the fact that we can listen to other people’s dreams, fears, joys, sorrows, desires, and defeats - and they in turn can listen to ours.”

Humans have the privilege to be able to listen to one another. We can share ideas, compare likes and differences, and learn from one another. The ability to improve the world starts with the simple skill of listening.

If we don’t shut up and start listening, we’ll never know what deserves to be heard. So pay attention to what people say to you, formulate questions on things you don’t understand, and above all:

Listen.