Are You Really A Good Listener ?

Don’t listen just to show you listen, listen with Integrity, being in present.

What does mean by listening? Listening is defined as an effort to hear something. Just hearing is not listening. In this article we have treated listening as the power to develop an opinion from a communication received from any data source, may be verbal, written or any other mode, and using the same information in day to day life. In general, we used to receive many communications on daily basis. Some are right and some are wrong but in many cases, we accept them as true. So our listening power needs to be very strong, so that we may be able to take the right decision in our life. I remember one such episode where my listening pushed me back by 1 year in my academic classes. I belong to a village in UP. There was a house between my home and school. A relative of the house owner used to visit his home frequently. In the village that relative was famous as a “thief”. I feel very afraid of him. So seeing him seated over there I stopped going to school. Although I did not inform family members about it. Later on, the teacher informed parents about my absence so I was taken to school forcefully. Although so-called relative never created any problem for me. Similar listening has created disbelief in peoples. For example, take the example of a policeman, despite being an honest and compassionate man people have created their image in mind based on a few listening’s which does not accept them in the same way. Incorporate, auditors, to carry many fake/artificial listening which has been deeply buried in the mind of process owners so that generally peoples do not believe them as persons of fairness and co-operative approach.   

Many of you have also experienced similar experience in your life. My purpose of referring it here is that we used to listen to so many such statements in our life and they enter our subconscious mind. As a result, we form an opinion about others and becomes biased about our surroundings. As a result, we do not listen to anyone being present then and there. These beliefs cause suffering and misery in our life. I remember people used to say about my father that he is a very angry person. This belief was buried very deep into my mind, as a result, I never felt comfortable with him in any discussion. Whenever I wanted to discuss with him anything I was pre-assured that our opinion will not match. Although many a time, he supported me. For example, when I passed the 10th exam, I wanted to study mathematics but he advised me to study commerce. I did not like his suggestion and insisted on mathematics and finally, he supported me. When I was doing a bachelor of arts and decided to CA course then I realized that had I followed his suggestion it would have been beneficial to me.  

Similar situations may be in family, office or other places too. When we become biased with any person based on past hearings and take wrong decisions. It causes loss to the employer in terms of lower productivity, lack of motivation and succession planning. This is not a loss to the concerned employee but a loss to the company and a loss to the nation too.  Once I was travelling to an overnight destination city by train. 2 persons came and took a seat next to us. They remain seated for few times thereafter went near the toilet and remain seated there for 2-3 hours. I thought of them as probable thief and could not sleep the entire night. I was afraid that they will take away my luggage. Although they did not touch any luggage.

The human mind is actually a bundle of thoughts, which gets accumulated day by day. We carry this load every time with us. These thoughts based on our past experience try to filter our listening power and stop us from being present in any discussion. My car cleaner used to ask me for money frequently in advance. So my hearing converted into the belief that whenever he will speak to me he will ask for money. Although I never bothered about it and used to give and feel happy that God blessed me to be able to help someone. Once I was ready to go to the office and saw him coming near me. I was a little late so intentionally ignored him. On the next day, he informed me that Municipal Corporation has organised a camp to collect the property & water tax. So he was going to deposit some one’s tax so wanted to volunteer his service to me also.  Since I could not deposit tax in time so later on I had to pay a late fee of Rs.500/. Had I listened to him then late fees could have been avoided.

Now a question arises of what to do if you have a negative thought about anyone and you have to discuss anything with him. His position is so important that you cannot ignore him. Just create possibility. Take the example of a car cleaner, had I listened to him with the possibility, he could have saved late fees. These possibilities may convert into success and become the source of inspiration for us. In a number of cases, it has been seen that when we contact anyone with possibility, things become different and we get success. So let’s improve our listening to make our life more powerful.

Co-powered by Mr Nitin Khandelwal, Social Worker and Reformer