Sunday, March 25, 2012

Bad listener

I am starting to realize that, in general, I am a terrible listener. A combination of poor communication skills, short attention span, hyperactivity, and occasional insecurities seems to make me try way too hard to be heard. The unfortunate result of this whole trying too hard thing is that I end up dominating conversations with repetitiveness while managing to feel misunderstood at the same time. This creates a whole lot of unpleasant pitfalls for whomever I am trying too communicate with.

I wish I could push a button and instantly be better at this. I would do well to just talk a bit less. Sounds easy, but it always ends up being so hard.

So after thoroughly frustrating my Owner, and a 15 minute time out where I have to disengage.... NOW I get the point She was originally trying to make.

There is value in learning to shut the fuck up. Gotta work way more on that than I have been.

2 comments:

c said...

This is an old one I read somewhere, everyone else has probably seen it a thousand times before. But anyway, it's good:

"1) Listen
2) Shut up
3) Do as She says"

It sounds so easy... But it's terribly hard, most of the time. Going away for a while and thinking about it works for me too, when I get the chance.

alena said...

That is really good advice!

And yep, that's pretty much how to break it down to it's simplest part.

Thanks for reading, and sharing your thoughts. :)