How do we communicate with one another?

June 1, 2018, by Banchiwosen Woldeyesus

The noise is so loud,

I shout at them, they shout at me.

They speak around me, not to me.

            I do the same.

Meanwhile, in all this mess,

            The message is lost,

            Forever gone.

Crying silently,

            For it to be heard,

            In vain.

_Negotiations at the table

In life when we live with our fellow human beings, we use different methods to communicate with one another. Talking is one way of communication that can help us get our message out and receive back something from the other end. Through communicating, people send out their thoughts, emotions, feelings etc. and get back those same things in return. It is because people have been able to communicate with one another and continue to do so that things got accomplished and will continue to do so. No one person can do a thing alone. That means communication is at the heart of everything.

Though, communication plays such a key role in each and every one of our lives we do not communicate well and do not know how to improve on it.

We are talking yes, but not really communicating.

Communication at its heart consists of actually listening to the other person talk (whether we agree or not, whether we understand it or not, whether we have our own opinions and feelings to add to it or not). In addition we should listen without thinking about what our response should be. If we are thinking what to answer, again we have drifted off the actual listening part.

                        “The ultimate test of a relationship is to disagree, but still hold hands.” Unknown

In one of Dale Carnegie’s famous books, he talks about this concept. In one conference, the author met a botanist and he spent quite a lot of time with him that evening. At the end of the evening, the botanist told Carnegie that he is the best conversationalist that he had met in a long, long time.

Carnegie says that he was astonished by this statement.

Why?

Because he does not know a thing about botany and more over he is not interested in the subject of botany and such things. Then, why did the botanist admire him that night? Because he listened for the sole purpose of listening. Carnegie says that if you listen with a purpose of learning something from the other party, you might learn something. You might not like it or accept it but you should learn it first in order to choose later.

                “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” Aristotle