Poor Listening Skills
You either know what I’m talking about or you are not listening.
I wrote this for my own mental health.
There are times when I’m in a conversation with a real person who is fluent in the same language, standing right in front of me, and who is giving me all the positive listening signs. And yet, I soon discover that I am just talking to myself.
Nothing is getting through.
I know this by what I hear them say to me in response.
Please tell me you have encountered people like this — that I’m not crazy.
They just don’t listen.
Not because they can’t but because they won’t.
They aren’t hearing impaired, just set in their ways, living in some parallel universe of their own choosing.
I think usually it’s because they have made up their mind and additional information that does not line up with their beliefs will overly complicate their life.
Sometimes, perhaps, it’s because they have some reason unknown to me to speak and behave in ways in order to just cause me to go nuts.
When encountering the volitional deaf here is my advice.
Don’t take the bait.
Certainly attempt to make sense as best you can, but then move on in as respectful a way as possible. Give others permission to live as they choose, even if they are, in your opinion, wrong.
But what if you are dealing with a child?
If it’s your child, hold your ground if it is ground worth holding.
In other words, is your position sensible, not just arbitrary and solely for your own convenience?
If you are not sure it is sensible, discuss the problem with a disinterested third party adult you know thinks rationally. Then do the right thing.
Finally, and this is the hardest part.
Check your own listening skills.
Could it be I am the one who is more interested in being heard than in actually listening to others with an open mind?
Am I okay with being wrong and learning something new?
Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.