The Amount of Talking we do

It appeared to me, when I was working in a team for Uni: Listening is really difficult. And it is very frustrating, to say something just to realize, we were not properly listened to and therefore need to repeat ourselves. Not listening when someone is inherently rude and respectles. But when a team member does not listen to us, do they really mean to be rude? I don’t think so. I think the problem is not just a team member. I believe it is way more universal.

In this day and age, we have forgotten how to listen to someone. We do so much talking, and hardly ever listen. I am thinking of Instagram in particular. We post tons of content and write all the captions in the world, while we only look at pictures of others, responding with one to five emojis, that do not correspond to the caption.

And this talking way more than listening showcases one more thing: a latent arrogance. We are self-obsessed. There is nothing wrong with taking care of ourselves. But when we care mostly about ourselves and maybe a little about someone else, we have a problem. Yes, our first and foremost responsibility is towards ourselves, but we are not alone in this world. Nor should we act like we are. We are not the most important thing in the world and what others have to say is just as important, as what we have to say.

We have cultivated talking without end, hoping that someone will care, but we are at a place, where people can just ignore, what we say, if they do not like it. And that is how we learned to ignore what others say. How many people do we follow who’s post we just double-tab to like, even though, we do not really care for their content? We talk so much and everyone who does not like it, can ignore it, that we have stopped saying valuable things. And we have learned, that what others express can just be ignored.

This may very much be, how the internet works, but is not, how the real world works. And we should review our behavior. The more we ignore on the internet, the more we will ignore in real life. We learn behavior patterns. I suggest only following the people who create value, at least most of the times they post, even if that means unfollowing some of our friends.

We cannot control, what others do. But we can control what we do. We need to start making sure, that what we say and post has value. Not every joke we make will be on point and that is not what it is about. But if we are willing to talk, we should be willing to listen as well. And we should work on taking the things, other people say seriously, because not doing so is plain respectles.