Talk. (Where did you think this was going?) Talking is something that we just don’t seem to do well anymore. We communicate in less than 140 characters and convey emotion with cartoon-like characters. We sometimes say words but we rarely talk anymore.
I am often saddened, when I walk the hallways between classes at the university, to see any number of students sitting or standing and staring at their phone screen. Plenty of interesting people around them, but they choose to text, tweet, e-mail, or just scroll their social media accounts. During classes, when I offer a break, the phones come out. The same occurs everywhere in public. I find it particularly offensive in restaurants—a group of people sitting around a table staring at small screens. Have we lost the ability to communicate verbally? (Of course not, but it would seem like we are heading in that direction.)
Talking, however, is more than just speaking. There are some who have mastered the art of vocalization, who miss the better half of talking—listening.
Winston Churchill once said: “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” Wisdom is to know when to stand up and speak and when to sit down and listen.
We are living in a time when communication seems to be disappearing from our skill set. We have become one-sided in our discourse. We yell (or more often, type in all capitals), demanding to be heard, but refuse to listen. We need less protesting, less Twitter, less e-mail, less Facebook, and more using the phone for what Alexander Graham Bell intended. We need more time being present and having face-to-face conversation. This is hard in our fast-paced, digital age, but it is not impossible.
We have a problem with people texting while driving (and walking, too—I actually get bothered more by the person slowly meandering in front of me on the sidewalk staring at his or her phone). Why not simply call? How much faster and more clearly can we have a conversation vocally? As well, how much better can we actually convey emotion using our voice? This is communication! I, personally, struggle with trying to keep up with text communications. Before I can complete a sentence with proper punctuation and check my spelling, the person on the other side has moved on. My responses always seem out of place. (And being a sarcastic person, it is challenging to convey when I am joking. It is so unnatural to write “LOL” or “HaHaHa” or choose the appropriate smiley-face emoticon.)
How well do we listen to others? Listening—really listening–is an important skill. How many of society’s problems could be solved by simply listening to one another—hearing and understanding what the other is saying. We need to listen between the words. I don’t think this can be adequately achieved in print/digital communication.
One of the most important things I have started to do with my wife is to take our “15-Minute Check-In” at the end of every day (well, nearly everyday—circumstances don’t always permit us to sit). It is important that we do this. Otherwise, we just keep running and never stop to really talk.
It is challenging sometimes to just listen, and it takes effort to care what the other is saying, but we must. It is helpful to consider that maybe the other person is struggling to listen to what we have to say. As well, it is important to allow the other time to speak. In other words, if you are talking, you aren’t listening. According to Dr. Joyce Brothers, “Listening, not imitation, may be the sincerest form of flattery.” There is much truth in this.
Perhaps we can commit to using our thumbs (or index finger, if you text like me) less and our ears and mouths more. And, in doing so, remember that God gave us two ears and only one mouth for a reason.
Carpe momento!
“Listening is an attitude toward people. It is developing the willingness, even the desire, to hear people out, better understand them, and learn something new. Has anyone ever learned anything while he or she was talking? Empathetic listening is one of the best ways I know to build trust with another human being.”—James C. Hunter, The World’s Most Powerful Leadership Principle (p.115)