Random Thought's - 2

                  Effective Listening 

It was Friday, a quarter past 5 in the evening. I was almost done with my work and was waiting for a session to start. There used to be a training and development program every weekend, where one would be trained on different skillsets. This week's topic was 'Effective Listening'.  The session was nice and came to an end by around six. The trainer appreciated me for proactively answering almost all the questions and rated me an eight on ten, making me feel so good about myself. On that happy note, I turned on the TV, switched between channels, waiting for my mom to come home and make me some coffee.

It feels so good to start your weekend on a happy note, right? 

Everything was so perfect!

All of a sudden, the power goes off and my mom is just back home from work. She looked very tired and restless, as she couldn’t take a nap (which she usually does), as soon as she gets back home. She was frustrated as always. Then she starts ranting about the issues she would always come up with. Since there was no power and I had misplaced my headsets, I had no option but to have a conversation with her. “What’s your problem Ma?”, I asked, with an irritated tone.

She then sat down and started to narrate her entire day's work - (from waking up at five in the morning, washing vessels, chopping vegetables, cleaning the rice, making coffee, and preparing lunch on one hand, to waking us up on the other. She then gets ready for the office & runs after packing breakfast and lunch for us, without finding time to have her own. Having done all this, she ends up being late for work, not able to achieve her daily targets, and all at the cost of skipping her breakfasts.  Especially on Fridays, she quickly finishes her lunch as the targets are a bit high compared to the other days. She has been working for over 20 years now and somehow manages to complete her targets.)

Well, this is what makes her crash for a quick nap straight after work, before she starts her household chores for the rest of the day. That was spoiled today because of the power cut. 

Honestly, my heart skipped a beat when I listened to everything that she said today.

Yes, hearing and listening are two different things. 

She used to tell us about her daily chores every single day.

Well, I then realized that all these years I had just been hearing what she said about her day at work, at home, the pain, the mental stress, etc., and not quite 'listening' to her. I felt really bad for not listening to her previously.

Don't we all sometimes think of it as usual?

We all have been taught about basic etiquette like listening skills, moral behaviour, discipline, responsibility, accountability, and so on. But do we apply them at home? Take a minute to think on those lines...

Probably, it's because we take our loved ones for granted or we know that they wouldn't be upset with us. I'm sure most of us would agree. 

A mother's love is the purest form of love!

And all we do is, ignore them. We mute their calls over simple conversations with friends, we spend very less time inquiring about their health, we never talk to them politely unless we want something in return and the list goes on..'

Well, it's time to stop hearing and start listening.

 

And at last, she added, “ I had asked you for my tablets in the morning. You told me to wait for a minute and I did, but you didn’t turn up. I was running late already, so I had to leave for work, and had to manage my entire day without taking the tablets for my back pain."

Without even realizing I replied, “I was working so might have thought that getting up and searching for it would delay my login."

She then said, “It was underneath your desktop and I mentioned that too."

That moment is when I realized that my listening skill should have been rated a zero on ten.