Listen!

In our world that glorifies multitasking and rapidity, the moments seem to be always on the move, while we are trying to keep up with them, without taking a moment to look around. The same treatment also has communication, which has become more hasty and negligent.

When did you last in front of someone and listen to him carefully without doing anything in this time? Without tapping the phone, looking elsewhere, writing on your laptop or not interrupting it?

Most of us use our ears to hear the sounds and echoes around, forgetting the second: listening. We limit ourselves to catch the rumble of flight and let them go immediately, without paying attention to its meaning, with a haughty indifference to the message transmitted. It is probably a protest at the hundreds of bits of information we are exposed to every day, so we prefer to simply plug our minds and shut it down. Somehow, this defense has become a reflex, so it becomes hard to listen carefully even if the person who speaks to us is not a violent television or a stunning banner, but a dear person.

We'd better know the people next to us if we knew how to give them not just the time, but our attention when we talk. I guess I can easily find what they want for their birthday, I know what colors they like or what their favorite dish.

So my desire for this week is to listen more carefully, let the other speak in his own rhythm, without interrupting him to every word. And I challenge you to do the same.