Effective Listening vs Selfishness

The human ear: it is man's best tool for communication. Without it, communication wouldn't be the same as it is today. However, do we actually use it? There have been many days of my life where I didn't use this tool, or not use it wisely. What keeps us humans from using this tool effectively? A lot of things.

For me, random thoughts. Have you ever been in a conversation with someone and just out of nowhere a random thought comes in mind? It can be anything: thoughts about your girlfriend, thoughts about what you did last night, thoughts about the big game tomorrow, or even thoughts about why is the person you are talking to is talking so much. Thoughts can be very distracting.

What other things keep me from effectively listening to a speaker? Environmental distractions? Hey, who hasn't been distracted by that pretty girl who you happened to catch at the corner of your eye? The exact same interest to listen to the speaker can be tempted by something else around us, drawing it and attention away from the speaker.  It happens to the best of us.

Values: They can be either our ear's greatest friend or foe. How much do we value what the person is talking about? Is the value high? Low? For me, depending on the situation, values can be just as nomadic as the people in the past.

Values, distractions, thoughts: they all can keep us away from effective listening. But they can, as well as many others, be summed up in one word: selfishness. Effective listening requires self-sacrifice, a less concern for one's self, sympathy, compassion; words that don't focus on "I" or "me". Humans can be quite selfish; I've been selfish many times in my life and might do so again. But I believe that when selfishness is out of the picture, what is left in the picture is your speaker, drawn quite well by your ears.