During these days, we are not really emboldened to listen.
The core reality is pretty much the opposite, in fact: we are fascinated to broadcast ourselves.
Most of our time is invested in training ourselves for public speaking, we unremittingly tax our vocal cords to the world on various social media platforms, and of course, we chat away undyingly on our latest and trendy smartphones.
Let’s consider this – when was the last time you have genuinely felt someone was listening to you?
And not to give a miss, on how about the last time when you have really listened closely to someone else?
This is nothing but the great irony of our times that despite being more and better connected than ever before, we are also experiencing – the want of close-knit communication, and a new coinage has erupted – the epidemic of melancholy, as the population of ages and the next-generation lot are owing a retreat to their smartphones and laptops.
It’s easier to stay in touch with each other, but the quality of all this communication isn’t breaking the ice; people still feel lost in an island!
We are not getting the attention we crave for.
One won’t feel shuddersome to learn that our attention span has stepped down recently, but one might be surprised that – since as recently as 2000, as per a research by Microsoft – the average attention span has decreased from twelve seconds to just eight.
That actually assigns us below the nine-second attention span of a goldfish!
Blame it on the rains?
Our phones certainly play a critical and decisive part, as well as all the other electronic and technical gadgets that we are now addicted to, almost to the point of no return!
Let’s not rake our brains out to avoid distractions for they are natural and ubiquitous – even in the form of the channel music piped into cafes and malls.
All these summerise that there’s something that we can actually do, so as to focus our uncompromised attention on what somebody else is speaking.
A healthy and decent conversation owns the power and might to mitigate all the background noise around us.
And we shall be amazed at the things we shall learn.
Everybody in the world is interesting, all we need to do is strike open a conversation and just listen to them with an unoccupied mind 🙂
