The simple and basic things in life ,are the most difficult. If you ask a teenager ,how difficult it is to jump out of the bed ,on a cold winter morning and brush his teeth, he could possibly explain this better, than me. This is a fact ,most of us keep denying ,right through our lives.

God has given us two ears and one mouth. This amply explains that , God as the ultimate designer of the human body ,expected us to listen more than we speak. But the reality of life ,is the other way around. We generally end up speaking more ,than we listen.

We possibly do that ,since many of us believe ,that if we do not speak before the others in the room, we may never be heard. Our parents, teachers and friends, have always encouraged us to speak and make our first impressions, on every occasion. This may not be wrong ,but if we listen before we speak, we may possibly make a better impression.

A simple analogy from a real life situation – if we buy a new product, we do not read through the instructions, before we start using the product. Some of us at least, read the quick fix guide ,before we assemble the product. Life is no different. We seem to be running a 100 meters race ,all the time. We do not have the time to listen .before we speak.

We are wired to speak ,before we listen. But imagine a situation, where we are forced to listen, before we speak. The first time my wife attended a “Vipasana” ( a deep mediation course) , she told me ,on her return ,of how they were compelled not to speak to anyone ,for a week or ten days ,at a stretch. Some of us may need such an intervention to understand the value of “listening” before we speak.

I once attended a training programme on “Communication”, where the facilitator demonstrated the power of “listening” ,through a simple exercise. Imagine a situation, where we have to convey something very important in our life ,to someone and nobody is listening to us. It is at this juncture, we understand the value of listening.

We can easily learn the art of listening ,from our mothers. They listen to the new born kid ,even before their kid is able to speak. Every one of us communicate both verbally and non verbally. According to the experts in kinesics, we communicate more non verbally than verbally. This means ,that unless we listen actively ,before we speak, we can never get the message, as we will not observe ,most of the non verbal communications ,from the sender.

On the other hand, imagine chatting with an active listener. A counsellor for example ,is generally a great listener. When we go to them for help, they listen to us, more than they talk. Their listening itself heals us and enables us, to deal with our own issues. At home, our parents, especially our mothers play this role very well.

The reality of life is that, if we listen twice as much as we speak, we may understand more, speak more articulately and our listeners will be keen to interact with us. If we recall from our own personal lives, we always love to interact with people, who are great listeners and not the other way around.

Let us listen before we speak from today.

S Ramesh Shankar

4th May 2025