We are living in the age that we can tune-in to anything that we like and what we like to hear or watch. If you don’t like to hear about things, you can mute that one too. If you like cooking, for example, you might subscribe and watch cooking lesson or cooking show religiously. If you like music, you’ll search for the song or turn on the radio that play the latest pop song. The same thing in life. Most of the time, we want to speak or say what we’ve experience because we want others to learn from us. That is good. But there will be time for us to listen. No matter how important you are, there will be good things that somebody else might teach you. By doing that we will attract better people around us.

There are a lot of good things that you can learn. I know that when you feel tired, you’d prefer to hear or watch something light rather than something . But while you’re still have the energy, be intentional in what you listen. here’s 3 reason why you should listen intentionally
1. To make better decision
Everyone, and especially leaders, need to listen to their surrounding so that they can make better decision. And for you husband, listen to your wife and vise versa. If you think that you can always make good decision, that’s good. But by listening, you’ll be able to make better decision. We need to admit that most of the time, we don’t have all the information to do certain things. By listening to others, we will get the other side of the story that will give better clarity. Remember that it’s better to listen to unfiltered message so that you’ll be able to hear the whole thing. I know most of the time, we don’t want to hear the bad news. But by neglecting the bad news, we can’t prepare enough when there’s a blockage down the road. Keep this in mind that you might not know all the information and that’s fine. That’s the reason why you have the people around you to help you with that information

2. To gain knowledge
Nowadays, in our busy life, we have less time to learn. audiobook and recorded audio conference are some good resources to learn new things while doing other things. I’m sure you know how your schedule looks like. As for me, I have about 1 – 1.5 hours commute time and I work over time some time. How do I learn something new? By listening to audio book, podcast or other information that I can during those commute time. I might just like certain topic, and I think that’s fine. You might want to listen to news, encouraging sharing, etc. basically have a mindset of learning. Now, I’m trying to force myself to listen and learn from someone who sounds boring. It’s tough, but I try to think that you can still learn something.

3. To understand people better
I admit that most of the time, I just want to talk. Everyone should listen to me, because I feel that I’m awesome. But is it? My life is not important compare to yours. let me rephrase, for most of us, our life is only important to ourselves and maybe to those people that close to us. Just like you want to be heard, other people want to be heard also. So, there’s time to listen to their story and to understand them better. Most of the time we have our own judgment based on what we see, while apparently, it’s much different when we let them explain or tell the story. And In the Bible it associate speaking and getting angry (read the Bible verse at the end of this post) That means that we need to learn to listen, instead of reloading our thoughts while the other person is talking.

Listening itself is an art. you need to be intentional in selecting the things that you need to listen. Most of the cases, if we just listen to anything, then a lot of bad things will be coming to our attention. I believe that most of the news that we read or watched are bad news. Try to notice your surrounding. listen and learn from it. No matter how knowledgeable you are, have the attitude of learning.

Question: What other benefit can we have from listening?

“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” – Stephen R. Covey

“My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry,” James 1: 19