… not because they have something we want to hear. It’s because they have something they want to say.
When we listen just to what we want to hear, we miss out on several things.
We miss out on things others have to say that we need to hear but don’t want to hear.
We miss out on other people. Speaking isn’t just about content. It’s about self-revelation. And when we listen just to what we want to hear, we miss out on the person speaking to us.
I found myself not listening to one of my kids recently. (I wish this was a rarer phenomenon than it is.) My child was talking about a topic I had no interest in and I found myself not hearing what was being said. It was then that it occurred to me that I was missing out on my child and on the world of the topic being talked about which my child found so interesting.
So, I write this post to myself. May I listen beyond what I want to hear and to others and what they want to say.