LISTENING ACCOMPLISHES MORE THAN SPEAKING

“To have the youngster talking nonsense Zeno said, ‘The reason why we have two ears and only one mouth is so we might listen more and talk less.’ “ - Diogenes Laertius, Lives Of Eminent Philosophers, 7.1.23

The world has a lot of wisdom to give and to pass on from generations to generations. History, sciences, and more as the world gets older. We love to talk to tell each other what they should do when they are in a bad situation or facing a problem. And it is welcomed and appreciated by them, but what if they only needed to be heard ?

Have you ever felt like you were absolutely unheeded in a conversation, and you felt like you’ll never get the attention of the person in front of you ? It’s quite a bad feeling, and I'm sure you can relate.

In fact, the power of listening is insanely strong. Listening to someone talking about their day, about the problem they had. Listening the old neighbor who’ve been living alone for years, or listening to the desperate homeless in the street can be life changing for them.

I know sometimes it can be hard to listen someone who’s in a long monologue about the potatoes that were no longer in discount at the grocery store but it may be their only conversation of the day.

Of course some people are absolutely comfortable with loneliness and they love to be alone and to live alone, but some are not. And having you to listen to them for 10 minutes can lighten up their day. In the end, all they want is two ears and a smile.

This is a very concrete way to interpret the power of listening, in something you may have already experienced in the past.

Now, I feel like the way Diogenes says it is more in a way that tells us “Where are you gonna get the informations you need if you speak more than you ear ?”.

And to me that’s where listening gets all its power.

The most important resource in our world is knowledge. Knowledge is an extremely powerful weapon and if you don’t have it it's whether you’re in danger or you put other in danger. It can put a relationship in danger. That’s why communication is so much important and listening is twice as powerful. Letting information enter you mind can make you smarter, better at anything. Getting informations from older people, people who got into the same troubles before you.

The thing I love the most here is the fact that we live in the world in its latest version whatever happens. The first writings were found around 3400 BC. So there are literally about 5420 years of history behind us, of people sharing what they think, sharing what they have deep inside the most intimate part of their head. Sometimes I feel like we are forgetting and neglecting this a lot. And with internet actually all the knowledge in history of the world is available to anyone who wants it in a quarter of a second, and everybody perfectly knows it.

Unfortunately it’s less difficult to double tap or swipe right on butt pics.

Thanks a lot for reading the article until the end, I really appreciate it.

Don’t hesitate to shoot me a dm if you want to discuss it, my ears are wide open to any kind of conversation. If you consider I’m wrong tell me why (ain’t nothing like a heartbreak)

I’m on twitter @JBDX_ and if you’re someone very professional like a Nasa recruiter or something send me an email at [email protected].

Tomorrow’s article will be called “No shame in needing help”.

So for all of that, and more, see you there :)