Sunday Story…Listening vs. Hearing

Hearing is easy…Listening not so much. Listening is an active process, hearing is passive.

Right now I hear a machine making some noise across the street. It’s a persistent rhythmic noise, yet intermittent. I don’t know what the machine is, I don’t know what it does, and I really don’t care. That is knowledge I don’t care enough to obtain.

Listening, however, is the process of understanding what the sound means. If I truly listen I will need to be engaged. I will need to be interested enough to inquire, to explore, to delve into the reasons, the emotions, and the wherewithal of the noise.

So many of us hear lots of things yet rarely listen. For many people the TV is on in the background all the time. It is background noise. You hear it, it is relatively soothing, like a white noise droning on. You aren’t that interested in it…it’s like the machine across the street, I hear it but I don’t care enough to discover anything about it.

Listening requires me to focus and a commitment to discover what is behind the noise, the intent, the emotions, the experience behind what is making the noise. The scary part of listening is that I might find some things that make me uncomfortable. I might get exposed to things that I have been trying to ignore and avoid.

Before you say I hear you, ask yourself if you are listening.

“Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”
― Stephen R. Covey

John Mariotti
www.crossfitodyssey.com
www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com
775-338-2412