Learn
to Listen
“The
first duty of love is to listen.”
Paul
Tillich
Do you
consider yourself a good listener? Would you rather talk than listen? Do you
feel like you have a lot to say, and you’d just like for people to sit quietly
and listen? I’m asking these questions of myself. Part of the second half of
life is unpacking the first half—looking closely at your successes and failures.
And asking yourself such questions as, did I have more successes than failures?
Were the things I called successes really failures? Were the failures really
successes? These questions are a little like riddles—all the answers are both right
and wrong.
Listening
is an art. Everyone has ears, but very few truly listen. True listening
involves taking in information, assessing its validity, and applying it to one’s
behavior. When I’m full of myself, when I just want to impart some piece of
information I have to you, I often don’t listen to whether you want to
hear it. Or to whether you have something equally important to say. Do you just
want to be heard without comment? Or do you want to be heard and then know what
comes to mind for me about what you’ve just said? The art of listening is to
know when to speak and when to keep quiet. Also, to know how to give feedback
in a way that isn’t hurtful. That’s both a skill and an art.
We
sometimes think it doesn’t matter what we say, because people don’t listen
anyway. Or that we can say anything we want because we have the first amendment
right of “free speech.” But words hold the power to hurt, break, mold, support,
create or destroy. What we say and how we say it matters—especially to people
we love. Paul Tillich called love “the blood of life.” If we love
someone, it’s worth learning how to communicate effectively with them. And it’s
worth learning to listen to what they say with all your being, and not just
your ears.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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