Years ago my husband and I attended a lecture hosted by our local (at the time) NPR station. The speaker was Diane Rehm, journalist and talk show host. This appearance was about 10 years before her final broadcast of “The Diane Rehm Show”.
One of the topics Ms. Rehm focused on was the importance of listening. Even back in the mid ‘00s, people were getting in the habit of talking a lot but not really listening. Twenty years later, things are worse than ever, but the incessant talking has been replaced by incessant shouting. There’s a lot of shouting these days.
I don’t find it enjoyable.
I will admit that I am a terrible listener. My husband often attributes this trait to the fact that I don’t like “dead air”. As a former radio broadcaster, dead air is deadly, and I can think of less than three occasions where I had dead air during one of my air shifts. He thinks I need to fill the dead air and that’s why I talk when I should be listening.
The truth is, I talk when I listen because it’s my way of understanding the context of what’s being told to me. My memory, which I can confidently say is “above average”, works best when I relate something being told to me to something personal. This usually ends up with me recounting my own personal experience in what I perceive to be a similar situation. It’s my way of saying, “I understand”, but to those who don’t understand the way I process information, it sounds like I’m making the given situation all about me. I am, but for my own purposes, not to one-up or outshine the person speaking to me.
I’m trying hard to find quieter ways of understanding this information.
With all the chaos going on in the U.S. Government these days, and lately it seems to be a lot more than normal even in these elevated times, I can’t help but think we’d all be the better for it if our elected officials just stopped hollering and trying to grab the spotlight by being the most outrageous and just started listening to one another.
If I can try to be a better listener, I certainly expect our elected officials to try to be better listeners as well.
But we know that’s not going to happen.
So when election time comes, I’m going to look for the person that demonstrates they can listen. Because listening can often lead to a civil discussion.
Unless the record has ended before you’ve had the next chance to start the next song on your air shift.
