When I feel sad, all memories of past sourness flash back; when I feel happy, I remember just the moment of joy.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Listening = understanding?
No.
Every time as I read articles with titles such as "listening is an art", I close it up with a confident thought that "I am good at listening". Until recently, I met two friends who allow me to reconsider my way to listen to people. One is accepted by everybody that is good at listening; the other one criticized often that I am a poor listener. Thanks to the appearance of both of them at the same time, I started to look back at myself and think how to improve.
So normally when I communicate with people, I noticed, that while they speak to me, instead of processing and analysing their information, I am always quite anxious thinking about....how should I respond. What should I reply to be less embarrassed, or to be impressive. It is cool to generate more and more topics and sometimes creative links, however, while meeting more and more new friends, it becomes boring...as if I am repeating my CV every time when applying a job. When I pay attention to my friend who is good at listening, I can feel that she is following the thought of the speaker. While she responses, she thinks on behalf of the speaker. Or in another word, put herself in the shoe of the others. In this way, the speaker is encouraged to talk more, and more useful information will be obtained.
Understanding the people is 100 times more important than exchanging superficial information. Because the communication on ideas/minds are more valuable than judgements.
To think further (thoughts are like networks, they are always interconnected :)), I used to be afraid of making new friends, talking with unknown people, perhaps I cared more how people will think of me instead of to really understand them. If I can be better at listening to people, bring them laughter and positive feedback, I think I should never have difficulties in making friends.
Think even more....I do noticed, that a lot of Chinese students I met abroad, we are lack of a good sense of humour. I don't want to generalize people, but when I was brought up, our parents, teacher, hardly tell us how important it is to have fun, to amuse people and being amused. As I remembered from high school, it is always about "achieving a successful career", "making your mother school feel proud of you","be a fundamental pillar of your country", but nobody told me how to enjoy my life, how to have fun. I guess this is the main value differences inter-cultural, which always makes me want to live abroad.
Every time as I read articles with titles such as "listening is an art", I close it up with a confident thought that "I am good at listening". Until recently, I met two friends who allow me to reconsider my way to listen to people. One is accepted by everybody that is good at listening; the other one criticized often that I am a poor listener. Thanks to the appearance of both of them at the same time, I started to look back at myself and think how to improve.
So normally when I communicate with people, I noticed, that while they speak to me, instead of processing and analysing their information, I am always quite anxious thinking about....how should I respond. What should I reply to be less embarrassed, or to be impressive. It is cool to generate more and more topics and sometimes creative links, however, while meeting more and more new friends, it becomes boring...as if I am repeating my CV every time when applying a job. When I pay attention to my friend who is good at listening, I can feel that she is following the thought of the speaker. While she responses, she thinks on behalf of the speaker. Or in another word, put herself in the shoe of the others. In this way, the speaker is encouraged to talk more, and more useful information will be obtained.
Understanding the people is 100 times more important than exchanging superficial information. Because the communication on ideas/minds are more valuable than judgements.
To think further (thoughts are like networks, they are always interconnected :)), I used to be afraid of making new friends, talking with unknown people, perhaps I cared more how people will think of me instead of to really understand them. If I can be better at listening to people, bring them laughter and positive feedback, I think I should never have difficulties in making friends.
Think even more....I do noticed, that a lot of Chinese students I met abroad, we are lack of a good sense of humour. I don't want to generalize people, but when I was brought up, our parents, teacher, hardly tell us how important it is to have fun, to amuse people and being amused. As I remembered from high school, it is always about "achieving a successful career", "making your mother school feel proud of you","be a fundamental pillar of your country", but nobody told me how to enjoy my life, how to have fun. I guess this is the main value differences inter-cultural, which always makes me want to live abroad.
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