Priceless
Most people enjoy gifts, both receiving and giving. If we are to be honest some of us enjoy receiving a little more than we do giving. On special occasions, we make an enormous effort to get the perfect gifts for those we love. Though it can be time consuming and costly, we certainly don’t mind, because love prompts us to sacrifice for those close to us.
There is however, a gift, a priceless gift, we can give our family members, friends, colleagues and even a stranger. That is the gift of listening. During conversation we are often preoccupied with what we are going to say next verses listening keenly to the person in our presence. Too often we hear the facts, the statements the person is making. We can repeat the words, but we miss the underlining message . We don’t listen to the point of hearing their ‘heartbeat’, because that can be too time consuming and cost us more of ourselves, than we are willing to give. Everyone desires others to truly understand them; we want to feel deeply cared for. We can reciprocate the same for others. The old proverb is applicable here and remains true, “People don’t care how much you know, until they want to know how much you care”.
The best ongoing gift we can give those in our home and beyond is to listen to their ‘heartbeat’ as they speak and respond in a caring manner. That will take some practice and discipline but it’s a gift that those in our space deserves.
Wrapping paper, ribbons and debit cards is not necessary this time around. Let’s give the gift of listening to those we love and when others give it to us, we will see there are few gifts as valuable as being understood. Author Stephen Covey is right, “We should seek rather to understand than to be understood”. For some, today can be the beginning of listening and not just hearing, the beginning of us being selfless during our conversations. It not about us this time, we are giving the gift of listening to the one in our presence. If we are going to listen to anyone, it is going to cost us significant time, it’s not time to be in a rush or be distracted…
