One of my 100 New Years Resolutions is to listen better, to listen WITHOUT figuring out how I will reply midway through the person's sentence. I have learned a lot about people today. Here are some of the conversations.
#1. I asked a elementary school kid to answer this question on a test:
Me: "Finish this sentence: I can always count on God to..."
Kid: "...forgive my sins."
Wow. I wish I always counted on that.
#2. Talking with high school students about whether technology (Facebook, Myspace, etc) has increased out ability to connect with others or decreased. The overwhelming response was decrease. Then one girl wondered if we'd ever get to the point where we didn't see anyone ever, with all things accessible by web. And one girl said, "If that happens, it will probably happen we we don't even realize. We'll wake up and realize, wow, I haven't seen you in a while and you live 4 houses down."
Made me wonder, how much of my life will change without me even noticing?
#3. Talked with some guys who spend the day walking all over town because "when you don't have a stable food source, you have to keep walking around to survive." I had never thought of that. I thought driving down the hill to Giant Eagle was a pain.
God gave you twice as many ears as you have a mouth, which means you listen twice as much as you speak. From an audiology standpoint, one would argue its so you can localize sound. But, it's humbling what I learned in a day when I stopped worrying about speaking and actually desired to listen.
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