Learning to Listen

Learning to listen… without response. Recently, I heard a radio program where a gentleman shared a story about how his daughter walked into his bathroom one morning while he was shaving and she let him have it. No introduction. No finality. She wailed on him and then walked out. He didn’t mention it until much later when she asked him to lunch and stated she couldn’t believe he stood there and just took it. His response, “Sometimes people just need to get it out”.

The overarching theme of the man’s story was being a good listener. We all struggle with hearing to reply rather than listening to understand. Often, people (ahem, children) need to get it all out. They need to speak until they’ve determined they said enough, when everything is “out”. The proverbial data dump of words. I encounter adults on a near daily basis that also need to be heard and I’m fortunate to have 2 ears to listen and only 1 mouth to speak. Watch one, do one, teach one.

As what’s-his-name would say, and now the rest of the story. What was his name? Onomatopoeia. Commonly mispronounced and more commonly misspelled, onomatopoeia means a word that also indicates a sound. For example, hiss, buzz, or splat. It’s a fascinating word not often used. Until my dinner table. Mini brought it up which fostered a conversation about what it meant. Something Waller? Bill? Truly, I had no idea! I’d heard the word before but never used it. Now you can!

Was it Dan…Jones?

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I ask you –

Did you know the definition of onomatopoeia?

What was that guy’s name? And now you know the rest of the story.

Listener. Responder. Choose one.

(The post Learning to Listen first appeared here at Running on Fumes.)

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