Being one of the senses, hearing is simply assumed. We never give it another thought because we have never had to.
It’s also automatic. In your conscious moments you are either speaking or you are listening. End of story. Except it isn’t. Consider these four examples of the subject at hand.
You are tent camping in the desert and mountain area of the American West or deep in a remote forest in the American East. You have every reason to say this is about as quiet as it can get, but you find out it isn’t.
You hear the hooting of an owl perched on a limb high above, the unmistakable yelp of a coyote far off in the distance, or the mysterious sound of a loon on a nearby lake. Coupled with a star-studded sky, this is nature at its finest that sort of insists in cleansing your soul. Listen long enough and you imagine heaven being like this or feel a closeness to God you have never felt before.
In the sharpest of contrasts, your team is ahead by one point with two minutes left in the game and the opponent has the ball. You join in with all the others who are yelling and screaming.
Or maybe you are in a huge theater the stage of which is graced by one of the most popular singing groups of all time. With the last note of the one song that launched them to stardom, the building shakes from tremendous applause.
Then there is the time when a classmate, the one voted most likely to succeed, really did. He came back to a celebration of former classmates who laugh and shed a few tears as they make their way through a memorable and unforgettable homecoming.
Always present, however, is the usual stuff of life, a morning routine when you mindlessly eat some breakfast as you glance at the news on TV you would rather not see as you punch your way through three pieces of voicemail you would rather not hear. Then you begin the drive to work with the usual but thank goodness, only occasional horn blowing from the impatient or a siren that surely means someone else is in far more trouble than you are.
Or maybe you elected to attend a class. Luckily, the instructor has a good voice and an interesting way of presenting information, but if it weren’t for the enthusiasm of your fellow students, you aren’t sure you would have signed up for the course.
The one example that dwarfs all the others in importance, however, is your listening to what another person is saying to you. It makes no difference who that person is, friend or stranger, highly accomplished or just a beginner, with money to splurge or none to spare, happy or sad, angry or happy, youthfully fresh or elderly and worn.
It’s not a label speaking to you, but rather a human being who feels compelled to share so as to bolster their own spirits, or is searching for an answer to a vexing problem, celebrating the success of themselves or a son or daughter, or has no motive or purpose at all except to display pleasure at just feeling exceptionally good and able to just walk around.
That’s when you must insist on giving them one hundred percent of your attention, looking straight at them, carefully listening to every word, smiling when they do, becoming misty eyed when you learn of their misfortune, activating your brain so as to share the best of your knowledge and judgment, offering words of encouragement when you know they must keep moving no matter how difficult the journey, laughing with them when they tell a funny joke, sincerely approving an important decision they made or calmly disapproving if you believe they decided wrong, celebrating with them whatever is making them feel happy and on top of the world.
You see, it’s during those moments that all they want or need is you — your best judgements, your most genuine reactions, your companionship, your hunches or feelings whether they agree with theirs or not. After all, they are spending time with you because they trust you, or enjoy your company, or value your judgement, or know they can benefit from your knowledge.
Finally, if they don’t mention it first, smile and suggest that surely they know it was no accident that the two of you got together.
This was no starry night, no ballgame or concert, no celebrating anything, no normal day. Instead, it was two people filling a need or desire.
Logic says that as you help them achieve, so are you also adding to your own greatness.
