The art of understanding

Communication is a curious thing. It’s like the song by Simon and Garfunkel the Sound of Silence, “People talking without speaking, people hearing without listening” then again the problem of understanding comes from people listening but not hearing. And we all know there’s the types that can’t listen because they’re too busy speaking.

Listening and then understand are actually two different arts or attributes that one possesses. Listening is being attentive to the subject that is speaking and understanding is the processing of the information wherein successful communication is completed. Upon hearing the words we can learn or imparting them we can teach one another. This too is spoken by Simon and Garfunkel.

Again, if the words don’t reach you, if you don’t hear them properly, process them as they were intended they fall on deaf ears and that’s how so much miscommunication happens, things are taken out of context and improper reactions, responses and actions happen every day. It sounds so basic but consider speaking to someone from another country where English is their second language or even speaking to someone from the UK where so many  things have different meanings despite both being spoken in English.

This has been long and drawn out but I hope you see the point that understanding is taken for granted so often every day so much so that simple words spoken to a cab driver can land you in not only the wrong direction, wrong place and wrong city unless you’re attentive. The solution for so many of us is to reply back to the speaker with our understanding of what they said with their confirmation and then proceeding. Do this and life’s almost like a box of chocolates.

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/understanding/”>Understanding</a&gt;