“I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.” -Ernest Hemingway
At the end of my theories of personality class, our teacher asked the class which of the six theorists we studied, (Freud, Adler, Sullivan, Skinner, Jung, and Rogers) we would choose.
A few students raised their hands and told their preferences. Most of the choices depended on the specific problem that the student assumed to be facing. For example, if one suffers from a phobia, Skinner might be a good choice since he worked with many phobics.
I said I would have liked to go to Carl Rogers.
Not to just any Rogerian, but Rogers himself. Even though there are many aspects to Rogers’ theories that I enjoy, he had a specific trait, or maybe we can say a gift, that most practicing Rogerians don’t have.
He knew how to listen.
There are videotapes from sessions Carl Rogers held with a patient. In the tape one can see that to Rogers, at that moment, all that matters in the world is that very patient and the words he or she is uttering. Rogers knew how to utterly and completely listen to another human being.
How often do people do that? And I don’t mean ‘pay attention’, I mean truly listen.
Most often as the other person talks, we’re formulating our answer, thinking of something completely different like a problem at work or an important to-do, or even simply tuning out. Most of us never bother to scratch deeper than the surface of a conversation, especially if it doesn’t directly involve us.
I don’t mean to say we’re selfish or that we don’t care. I just think that most of us are usually thinking of too many things at once, so we don’t really concentrate on one particular thing at a time. It’s certainly possible to listen to a friend while making a grocery list in one’s head. And I don’t mean just nod, but listen enough to be able to recite the words back to the person. But is that really listening?
When was the last time a certain person or conversation had your full attention? And I mean 100%. Being listened to is an incredible rush. You can definitely tell when someone’s listening and not just hearing. When the person is fully there with you and you’re not only their number one priority but their only priority for that moment in time.
Somehow we tend to do that when we’re in the process of making new friends or falling in love. Since it’s a completely new environment we tend to be ‘all there’ and we have very few assumptions since we don’t know the other party well enough to assume. So we listen. We really listen.
I decided that I want to do more listening. What I can learn from really listening to one person is exponentially more rewarding than simply hearing the words of a hundred people.
Previously? Slow.
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