Have we forgotten the art of listening?

In her late seventies, she was enjoying a cup of “Kopi-O” alone. Her eldest son dropped her off before heading for a day out with his wife and children.

“I am very open minded, my children have their own priorities. I can’t blame my son, it is not easy to juggle and spare his time between his family and me. More importantly, I am fit for my age and I enjoy my solitude. I will give my son a call to pick me up when it is time to go home. In the meantime, I have a lot of time to kill,” she continued with a smiley face.

Our conversation lasted for more than twenty minutes and she gave me a glimpse into parts of her life. At the end of the conversation, I learned more from her than a 2-hour Blockbuster movie.

Day in day out, we measure the quality of our time spent through how much we have achieved or how productive we have been. In the midst of carrying out our day to day responsibilities, we are on the verge of forgetting the art of listening and how powerful storytelling can be in connecting people. We place more importance in getting people to hear what we have to say that it slipped our mind that we can play a part in putting our friends' mind at ease by lending an ear.

Everyone has a story to tell. Nevertheless, time and again we are held back by our inhibitions when it comes to the matter of opening our hearts and confiding in others.

For one, to find a person of whom we place a certain level of trust and is equally open to listening to our stories is hard to come by.

Secondly, often times we associate our stories as the least exciting and less romantic; pale in comparison to the plots of the engrossing novels or soap operas that many of us loved. I believe we have done it at some point: reconstructing a story to make ourselves appear to be more interesting. For fear of revealing our weaknesses and exposing our flaws, we choose to put our best foot forward.

Be that as it may, a good story is one that involves raw and sincere emotions. It is in seeing through the mundane that we are able to weave meaningful life lessons.

No man is an island. Our path in learning may never be as fulfilling if we were to learn in silos. By musing over the stories of yours and mine, we learn to make better judgements and more informed decisions in life.