As extroverted as I am, I pride myself on being a good listener. My mom would always say to me as a little girl, “We were given two ears and one mouth for a reason,” and although I understood what it meant I never thought that it would become such an important part of the way I live.

 

I think being a good listener is an extremely overlooked quality in people mostly because it’s so commonly used but so poorly executed. Listening does not mean pretending to hear what someone is saying and figuring out how you should respond. Listening means being able to turn off the part of your brain that thinks about you and your own issues and focuses on what someone else is saying. It isn’t the act of hearing with your ears; it requires understanding, analyzing and empathizing with you heart and brain. Our world is filled with a lot of people who abuse their mouth and ignore their ears.