“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” ~ Stephen Covey
The Art of listening Have you ever experienced the beauty of listening? How about trying after reading this ? Nature is mildly silent yet fiercely breezy conveying disparate feelings. In this cacophonic world where it’s hard to keep pace with words, we excel in the ‘lack of listening’, not realizing the secret marvels of nature that we are losing! Isn’t it is hard to pay attention to the quiet, the subtle, the understated ? One spends roughly 60% of the communication time on listening - of which only 25% is retained! ‘Listening can be defined as making meaning from the sound which is a mental process and a process of extraction…’ as quoted by Julian Treasure in his talk on ‘5 ways of better Listening’ , a speaker at TEDx platform. But why are we losing our ability to listen? What are the reasons behind it? Certain technological changes are responsible for this in some ways: the invention of writing, audio recording, and video recording! In this nois