Hearing vs. Listening

Last night, I ate dinner at a local restaurant. As I got ready to leave, I came up to the young man working at the register and asked if I could get a refill of my drink, specifically asking him not to put ice in it. Just as he agreed to do this, I watched as he proceeded to put two large scoopfulls of ice into my drink and then refilled it.

Do you ever get the feeling that people are hearing the words coming out of your mouth but they aren't really listening to you?

I'm sure we all do at one point or another, be it in our interactions with family, friends, co-workers, classmates, etc. How rare is the friend who is a really good listener, to whom we can take our problems and our worries and then leave knowing that that person has not necessarily fixed everything but has truly listened to what we have had to say and cares about our well-being. By the same token, there are few social situations more disconcerting than to try to talk to people who couldn't care less as to what you want to tell them.

I remember one particularly disappointing incident when I was going through a difficult time. I told a friend I thought I trusted about some of my problems, after which he said simply, "Sucks to be you!" This is by no means good listening, and, almost needless to say, I have really not been able to trust this person at the same level since.

As for myself, listening has never been my strong suit. Some of my elementary school report cards, in fact, point out explicity that in class I often struggled to listen to the teacher; I was a daydreamer or was otherwise off in my own world much of the time. It's something I have worked hard to overcome over the years, and I still have much progress to make.


Fortunately, time and experience have helped a lot in that effort. My mission really taught me to be a much better listener, and so did my education in the field of communication. My current bishop is one of the best listeners I know and a fantastic individual to talk to about anything and everything, and his and others' examples have shown me what a great listener can be like.

I hope I can follow the advice of the Mike + the Mechanics song "The Living Years": "You can listen as well as you hear."