Calling All Listeners?
Wanna Hear A Secret?
It's really not a secret you know; life is a mystery, not a secret! If it was a secret how would you have known? Oh, I see, you heard it from a little birdie, right? There is no secret here, it's just regurgitated stuff, fashioned by a super marketer telling the same story in modern jargon destined for those who aren't really listening to what's going on inside of them to begin with. If you knew your self, and this mystery we call life, would you care about a new secret? Could there even be a new secret about it? Truth is, I'm not sure many of us are listening to what we already know because if we did, we wouldn't want to hear it. So, this is not a hub about secrets; it's a hub about listening and learning and growing and being.
- "Listen to life, and you will hear the voice of life crying, Be!" - James Dillet Freeman
Even when some are listening intently, they just don't get it!
It's more important and harder than you think
Recently, I recognized what a horrible listener I was...er...am! There were several clues that led me to this conclusion and I thought I would give some of them to you so you can pass them on to others whom you might think are terrible listeners too!
- I'm a man - According to my wife all men are terrible listeners. I probably would have known that if I had listened to my first wife. I hope I learn it before there is a need for number three.
- I'm an older man - how can I listen when it's getting more and more difficult to hear? I now have more hair in and around my ears than ever before. The problem is the ones inside my ears that are supposed to vibrate so I can hear don't and the ones on the outside that aren't supposed to be there are just flowin in the breeze making it hard to hear anything at all.
- I'm a proud old man - what man in his right mind wants to listen to someone else when he knows instinctively, like a teenager, he already knows everything there is to know. LOL!
"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen." - Winston Churchill
All Kidding Aside
Listening is an incredibly important yet underutilized human gift. True, many of us can hear, but how many of us truly listen? Do we understand what we may be missing by failing to pay heed to another human being, by failing to share our complete and undivided attention? I think not, Otherwise, we would do it more intently, possibly hearing things like; I may not agree with you, but perhaps we can work on the solution together. Or, is it possible for us to move beyond where we are right now and live in harmony despite our differences? Or maybe, we might even listen closely enough, without thinking about our next remark, to hear, I"m sorry, please forgive me? What if we listened carefully, yet vulnerably, with an open and expectant heart, might we just hear something significant like...I love you? Would that be worth the price of learning how to listen?
Okay, so maybe we didn't get all the right lessons from our parents or from our education or from the experiences we have had to date. But maybe...just maybe, if we can muster the courage to remain silent one moment longer, while another speaks, trying to convey a thought or a feeling, then maybe...just maybe, we'll build new pathways of goodness, kindness and trust. Maybe we won't all have to continually pay such a dear price for choosing not to learn, choosing not to be conscious enough to say to ourselves I care about the world in which I live and I can do better. Because I value life, I will swallow whatever pride I have and I'll learn to help fill in some of the gaps that I didn't know as a child. Then, maybe...just maybe, we can discover another clue, integral to the mystery of this life that has always eluded us.
Can you hear what I hear? Listen, in the silence is the sound of peace! Peace with my brothers and sisters and peace...within my own heart!
Just sayin!
