Do You Hear Only What You Want to Hear?

Do you ever hear only the parts that suit you, or notice only what you were already looking for? Sometimes we tune things out, skipping over sections of what we are told or shown. When I attend a service to tend to my spiritual side, I go hoping to hear whatever God wants me to take in. I try to arrive without a fixed idea of what the day will give me. I settle down, grow quiet, and pay attention to the prayers, the words, the actions. It is a chance to stay in the present rather than ache over the past or stew about what might come.

A comment during yesterday's service stuck with me, and I want to pass it along. The point reaches well beyond worship. It fits doctor appointments, books, lectures, workshops. We tend to hear what we wish had been said instead of what was actually meant. Learning something new can push us to rework ideas we already carry; when the new material makes us uneasy, we bend it until it matches our existing picture of how things ought to be.

Ever played the gossip game and watched a simple sentence mutate into something unrecognizable by the end of the line?

We drift in and out, quietly editing what reaches us so it feels more tolerable, whatever the subject. Boredom hits. Irritation creeps in as the speaker keeps going. Minds wander, eyes close. Stay with it anyway, because something worthwhile might be sitting right there.

The same thing happens with what we see: posters, slide decks, a quote printed across the top of a page. Think about how that quote landed with you. Did it put you at ease or set your teeth on edge? Are you the type who stays open and receptive, or do you bristle when someone else tells you what to do, or has an opinion about your looks, your belongings, your family? You hold your own views and you are settled in them.

When I leap to a conclusion, I stop registering what is actually in front of me. Stereotypes about people and whole cultures fall short of reality, and they wall us off from the range of human difference and from finding out what those people and places are genuinely like.

This is part of why Active Listening, as Carl Rogers described it, carries so much weight in how we communicate. Repeating back what the other person said before you answer nudges everyone toward taking in the whole message rather than a trimmed version of it.

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