The Lost Art of Listening

I recently watched a Ted Talks video, Five Ways to Listen Better with Julian Treasure. We, as a society, do not listen anymore. We have lost the art of listening. His talk was about bringing this concept of communication back into our conversations.

We as a society have stopped listening. There is too much noise that we start to drown it all out. Texting has replaced a large portion of our conversation. Our children do not have conversations anymore, and when they do, it's all in text speak.

One of the things Julian Treasure did in his speech was showcase five activities that we can all do to improve our listening skills. These activities are:

1. Silence - sit in a silent room for 3 minutes and just listen to what you hear. 
2. The mixer - sitting in a noisy room, identify the different channels you are hearing.
3. Savoring - learn to enjoy the beauty in mundane sounds.
4. Listening positions - moving your listening position to what you're listening to.
5. RASA - Receive, Appreciate, Summarize, and Ask.

The past few nights at work I have been practicing Silence. I work at night, my residents have all been sleeping, so I had a lot of quiet to practice with. After a few minutes I started to hear the noises of the building, such as the blowing of the industrial air conditioning, the sounds of a resident snoring down the hall, and even muffled voices of the nurses on the floor below.

These exercises not only allow us to become better listeners but allow us to appreciate the beauty of the sounds we hear every day. We take for granted the noise we are subjected to on a daily basis. When we can start to appreciate how wonderful listening can actually be, our outlook on life and the world starts to change.