While normally I do not like to write about school specifically, I had an eye-opening experience in class the other day and I thought that everyone should have this experience as well. I was in Intro to Communications at 8 in the morning, so honestly I was not expecting an epiphany or really anything special, considering the fact I was up until 1 in the morning the night before doing homework and pushing through the sleep deprivation I have grown accustomed to since I got to college. On this random Tuesday, my teacher began to talk about listening effectively and how our listening impacts our everyday lives and the people around us.

Most people believe they are a good listener, especially if you are like me and many of your friends come to you to vent or get advice about a certain situation. I did not realize until this lecture that I was, in fact, an awful listener. Listening is defined as making meaning from what someone is saying to you, not just letting it go through one ear and out the other. In order to truly listen to someone, you must give them your full attention and put yourself into the words that they are saying. Too many times, we as nonperfect people are just hearing what is going on around us, but not truly listening. We are on our phones or we are distracted by our own problems to pause our lives and just listen to that person trying to confide us. While this may not seem like a huge deal, overtime we become so selfish and so plugged in to our problems and our successes that our relationships begin to fall apart. We have no idea what is going on in our friends' and families' lives because we are worried about how we are going to respond to their statements instead of just listening.

Since this lecture, I have really worked on just being quiet. It has always been a habit of mine to put in my two sense, but sometimes people just need to let it all out and not hear what my know-it-all self has to say. It is hard to put a halt in the million things going through my brain at once just to listen to someone vent about a certain class or a certain boy, but that is the point of friendships and relationships: be there for them no matter what. This may have not caused your eyes to open as wide as mine, but I just wanted to share this little bit of information and hopefully help your listening skills and relationships grow stronger.