The lesson in class this week was centered about a 2 vital elements of interpersonal communication: listening and hearing. Most people consider the two concepts to be synonyms of each other but that is not the case. Hearing is involuntary and accidental while listening is focused and voluntary. A prime example of these concepts getting confused for one another is during an argument. It could be an argument with say a close friend or your partner and you two have opposing differences. I’m sure everyone had encountered conversations in which you are having a heated discussion/argument with someone and it seems as if the conversation is going nowhere. You can hear the words they are constructing out their mouths and you then formulate your own counter argument, but at the end of it all there could be no proper solution because you are not truly listening to that person’s words. It is easy for anyone who is of ability to hear; we hear conversations as we pass by others daily. But a major block in interpersonal communication that a vast majority of people encounter is not being able to listen and to most importantly understand where an individual is coming from when having conversations.
Here is a meme/picture that captures how I feel when someone is clearly not listening when I’m communicating with them:
Amanda’s Journal 