I came to understand something kind of late in life—I thought I was listening, only to find out I wasn’t really. Listening seems like the most passive activity in the world. It’s so passive you can’t really tell if someone’s doing it or not. You might think someone’s listening, but you can’t really tell where their mind is. It’s the classic case of their ears hearing what your saying, but it’s not registering with their brain. That’s where active listening can hold some value. Active listening is just the coordinating effort of both ears and brain being engaged at the same time.
Something clued me in that my ears were taking in information while my brain was ‘out to lunch’. I noticed that when I watch movies many times I just get a broad overview of what’s going on in the film, but I don’t really have a good grasp of the details. I was kind of a lazy listener. I guess I’m a big picture kind of guy. So instead of missing the forest for the trees, I was missing the trees for the forest. If that makes sense. I didn’t really care about a lot of fluffy details. Just give me the facts I need to know and I’ll be on my way. I guess that’s what happens to me in conversation. Some people tend to embellish their stories with a lot of commentary and peripheral things. Unfortunately, this is when I tend to check out of the conversation—mentally, that is. I may look like I’m there, but I’m not really there. You just lost me, only you don’t know that you lost me. Sorry.
However, lucky for you I found a remedy for this ailment. I’ve learned to take a more active approach to listening. I try to practice this when I’m watching movies now. Instead of just glossing over the details and only looking for the big picture, I try to mentally review in my mind what was just said to glean the details from it. It’s a kind of mental rewind that I do in real time. Then I slowly put the pieces together as I go along. I tell myself, “Oh, so this fits over here…and then because this happened they did this…and now they’re in this situation because of what they did back there.” My mind is fully engaged this way. Now I’m really listening because I’m really engaged in what’s being said.
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I’ve found this quite helpful when reading as well. I guess you could call it ‘active reading’. Once again, the problem is my mind wasn’t engaged. You find that you can go through the mechanics of reading without really reading, just like you find you can go through the motions of listening without really listening. Getting a broad overview is fine, but when you miss a lot of the details the story kind of loses its flavor. I find I’m a better active listener now. I guess I’m a little late to the party. Oh well. Better late than never.