My four-year-old son is not a good listener. I know this because he forces me to repeat everything in triplicate before he acknowledges me. It’s hard to be a good listener. I have to work hard at it all the time and I’ve got three decades of experience on him.
Recently I’ve listened to some PYT’s (pretty young things) talk about their friends, school, weekends, and just the overall important-ness that is them and their lives and what I’ve noticed is this: they are ridiculously self-centred. And therein lies the problem - for one to be a good listener, one must shut it and be non-self-centred (you-centred?), for one second. In this Facebook, Twitter, myspace, look-at-Me-Me-Me-age, that's tough.
Effective communication occurs when the receiver correctly interprets the intended message spoken by the speaker. But what if the speaker sucks and doesn‘t have a message other than “listen to everything I say and realize how awesome I am?” We’ve all been there before, listening to someone drone on while seemingly viewing themselves as overly important icons (Michael Ignatieff holding court in December, anyone?).
And now that we all have numerous forums in which to post our brilliantly relevant thoughts (natch), who exactly is going to listen?
Ssy
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