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If you do not adapt, if you do not learn, you will wither, you will die.

Friday, May 31, 2013

Listening ‘poem’


Fair or not, I blame my aging brain and my very busy life for not knowing where I first laid eyes on this 'Listening Poem' as I call it. I wished I could do honor to the author, so tell me if you know the origin. 
I have written about listening before - about the power of real listening and about the under-estimation and the difficulty of listening. Of real listening. Which is distinctly different from being quiet, as we all know. But lets be honest, knowing and doing are often two very different things. 
Most of us, myself included, are poor listeners, most of the time. To complicate the matter, there are different purposes and thus different kinds of listening. Just to name two: if you wish to understand, you listen with your questions, and if you wish to demonstrate your listening, you let your actions show it. How much and how well do you listen and do you distinguish between the different forms of listening? 
Below poem takes home the point so clearly, I'll let it speak for itself.  


When I ask you to listen to me
And you start giving me advice
You did not do what I asked you to do.

When I ask you to listen to me
And you start explaining
Why I feel the way that I do
You did not do what I asked you to do.

When I ask you to listen to me
And you tell me why I am wrong
You, again, did not do what I asked you to do.

When I ask you to listen to me
And you respond with your own experience
Then you’re preoccupied with yourself, and not with me

When I ask you to listen to me
And you feel obliged to do something to solve my problem
Then you don’t give me what I asked for and what I need.

How strange it may seem
But when you simply accept that I feel what I feel
That I ask time and attention for my story
No matter my feelings and the story
And apart from what you could say about this story and my feelings
Then I can quit trying to persuade you
                                                 And simply tell my story. 

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