Listening and Balance

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 17 September 2010 08:36:26

I listen well. It's my thing. And people like me because not many people do listen well. It's so rare, in fact, that I pay someone for an hour a fortnight to talk about myself and what I need. I pay her not to interrupt or talk about herself - essentially, I'm paying for the privilege of not listening to her in return. I've thought about doing counselling in the past. My present counsellor is so remarkably good at reflection that I worry I'll never be as astute and observant as she is, and the training is very long and arduous and expensive. These are all considerations. It made a big change in my life and relationships the day I decided to make a point of learning to actively listen to people. And listening is active rather than passive - once I can't concentrate any more, once I'm not hearing you any more, I'm really not listening. I'm not helping. Today I'm going to try to achieve some balance in this. I'm not going to expect people to stop. I'm going to take responsibility for what I do, because to properly listen it must be something I do, not something that just happens to me. I will actively listen, and I won't let it run on into people just talking at me. And once I have a proper control of it I'll have a better idea of whether I could do it for a living. Hello again, by the way. :-)