Which one you are!

Listening is the best gift one could give to their dear ones.
Listening is the first step towards establishing bonds with friends.
Listening is the toughest thing as it demands high levels of patience.

Listening is gathering the sounds with utmost concentration and deciphering the sounds into words, words into emotions and images. They may of our liking or not, the intent of the speaker is reached. The emotions are understood. The situations are balanced. Listening is that balm which could bring peace to any tortured soul.

Listening has its own fools and intellectuals.
How... one may question. Here is the situations...

A person acts the best of listening abilities.
Maintains perfect eye contact, nods continuously, smiles as though understood everything.
When you ask for an opinion or judgement, the blank stare reveals it all -- "I heard nothing, I was just acting because I had no option but to sit with you and listen to you" reveals the SUPERFICIAL LISTENER.

ANOTHER one comes in...
In a very straight way puts on a disinterested face
Eyes look sleepy and boring
Sits falling back in the chair
Holds the face with the help of the palm of the hand
Looks down completely, that shuts off the speaker. It's an open statement of I'm not at all interested and we call this one -  A NON LISTENER.

We have one interesting listener
A LOGICAL LISTENER...
Yes, there is no logic in name. It's just their attitude towards finding the words of their choice. That is the logic behind their listening. They fix some words on their mind, and look for them in the words of the speaker. Such as 'hike in the salary' 'time for increment'  for the GM meetings, or 'tomorrow is a holiday' or 'bandh' for the students, 'pocket money' or 'going to buy a bike for you' or 'a new mobile' for the boy or the girl of the house. :) These are the naughty listeners of the four types. 

Don't worry
There are some good souls those encourage us to speak out heartily, console the worried soul, or give their hundred percent to listening. They give complete of their self to look into your eyes, understand you, and support with the best of empathy. They are named under the brand of 'ACTIVE LISTENERS'.
These listeners are a welcome at any party or meeting or considered as the best students in the class. They receive your words with an open mind and absorb the info just like a dry sponge! It feels the best to speak to such best receivers.

Now analyse and identify the category/categories that you find for yourself!

Don't you hear me

Hearing and listening sound synonymous to the casual reader. Check these two sentences below.
* Hear carefully or Listen carefully
* Hearing aids or Listening aids
Give'em a thought!

Now the idea is clear. Hearing is not Listening.
They depict different levels of the activity. Hearing is just the physical gathering of the sounds around us. We do not associate attention to those sounds that we hear. For example let us take - car horn sound, or the shouts of children in the play ground, or the TV program etc. We take in those sounds and we just hear them. And we don't try to remember them.

Listening is a activity associated with higher levels of concentration. We listen to the speeches of our favourite speakers. Note down the points or tips mentioned in their speeches mentally.Some even go to the extent of practising them in real life too. Listening results in connecting the content with the chord of a person's memory power.

So don't take it easy.
Hence we have this framed caution
"Listen Carefully!"  :)

Listening and hearing show their impact on our bonding with the people of our lives too.
A father is irritated when a son just hears at his words of caution regarding driving a bike or focus on studies.
What the dad said would not remain in the mind of the youngster. The moment he sits on the bike, only the racing road appears.
But it is an altogether different issue with our favourite activities.
We listen carefully to catch the words of the lyrics of our favourite songs. Hence we remember the songs more easily and for a long time.

Listening happens in three ways:
Listening to learn is considered as "Informational Listening" (Listening to Learn)
Sometimes we listen to Evaluate and analyse -   Critical Listening
Listening to understand, feeling and emotion - Empathetic Listening

These three types of listening occurs according to the place and the role of an individual in any given situation. Our vocabulary has to reflect the nuances of our intelligence and make work good for us.
 Hence seeing the words rather than just haring them works the best for us to respond well with others and sustain the emotional bonds longer.

See the Words

Yes dears!
See the words when you listen.
Feel the vision of it.
Attach a meaning through making a visual of it.

We love to have a sweet home, not a sweet house. What image comes to our mind when we listen to the word Sweet home, and what would you identify sweet house with? What is a house and what does it mean by a home?
See those words in mind, and a smile shine on your lips :)

Sweet home means a house where a family dwells and the family members enjoy a sweet bonding of belonging.
A sweet house (in our Indian context) is a place where the sweet savories are sold.
A house is a physical structure of concrete and bricks, where just the divisions of rooms exist.
When we listen, not only the ears, but also the mind should be involved.
When the word accompanies an image, a live one, then the word will have a longer mind-life to exist in our vocabulary.

We listen to each every word spoken by others.
We think of making a reply and say it. The listener receives it. This activity goes on in a mode of connectivity. This is what we call making a conversation. In spoken terms "we chat a lot. Chill with friends."