Mastering The Art of Listening – Daily Prompt: I Got Skills

The Daily Prompt has really challenged me this time.  Have you checked it out?  Click here and read all about it if you dare!  We were asked “If you could choose to be a master (or mistress) of any skill in the world, which skill would you pick?” Wow.  Think about it.  Oh, how easy it is to think of what I’d wish for if I found a genie in a bottle and could ask for anything, but fairy tales aren’t real and the challenge isn’t to choose between a handsome prince, a shiny new car, or an endless supply of gold, but rather what skill would I like to master. 

As I sit here in my home office, the television news is on in the background.  I’m hearing of school shootings, striking school bus drivers, high unemployment rates and political discord, to name just a few of the painful situations many of us face.  The answer came to me to this challenge as I heard all of these familiar battles.  I’d love to be the master (okay mistress, oops) of the art of listening!  Think about it!  Surely, we all want what’s best, don’t we?

• What’s best for me?
• What’s best for my family, my children?
• What’s best for my future?
• What’s best for my neighborhood, my town, my state?
• What’s best for my country?
• What’s best to promote unity?  To gain world peace?

So many questions and ultimately, the answer to each one, as I view it, is the same.  We just don’t listen!  Oh, I’ve said it many times; “I hear you.”  But was I really listening?  Did I really hear?  Did I really care?  I should care  . . . I must care.  But . . . are my listening skills all they should be?  Listening and caring go hand in hand and in order for the challenges in our lives to change for the good, we must not simply “listen”, but truly listen and focus and with an open-mind and an open heart.  Peace and unity wouldn’t be a long-shot or a false hope held by the naïve . . . it would be OURS!  How great would it be if someone didn’t have to come to me and say “listen to me!”  Why not?  Because they would know that I had the skill mastered!