You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters

by Kate Murphy

“You’re not listening!” “Let me finish!” “That’s not what I said!” After “I love you,” these are among the most common refrains in close relationships.

You miss out on opportunities (and can look like an idiot) when you don’t take a breath and listen. Talking about yourself doesn’t add anything to your knowledge base. Again, you already know about you. When you leave a conversation, ask yourself, What did I just learn about that person? What was most concerning to that person today? How did that person feel about what we were talking about? If you can’t answer those questions, you probably need to work on your listening.

“While I still hate to readjust my thinking, still hate to give up old ways of perceiving and conceptualizing, yet at some deeper level I have, to a considerable degree, come to realize that these painful reorganizations are what is known as learning.”

To listen does not mean, or even imply, that you agree with someone. It simply means you accept the legitimacy of the other person’s point of view and that you might have something to learn from it. It also means that you embrace the possibility that there might be multiple truths and understanding them all might lead to a larger truth. Good listeners know understanding is not binary. It’s not that you have it or you don’t. Your understanding can always be improved.

Research conducted by Microsoft found that since the year 2000, the average attention span dropped from twelve to eight seconds.

“What is the best gift you ever received?” and “If you went back in time one hundred or two hundred years and could only bring three things with you, what would you bring?”

You can probably guess how comparatively little economists would say gossip is worth on the internet. The value of information is inversely related to its availability and its triviality.

Regret is the second-most common emotional state, after love, she said, and the two feelings are intertwined since the most intense regret comes from neglecting those we love.