Hearing vs. Listening

Have you ever thought about the difference between hearing and listening? One is passive, one is active. One is voluntary, one is involuntary.

I’ll use myself as a reference point. I’m hearing things all the time. People talking, birds chirping, cars passing by, planes up in the sky, and much more, all the time. It’s rare to hear nothing.

Listening is different. Listening is intentional, selective and proactive. I can hear so many things at once, but I can really only listen to one thing at a time.

Jimi Hendrix said, “Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.”

It’s a beautiful concept. It means, in a conversation, each person needs to be able to go back and forth between applying their knowledge, and their wisdom. Instigating the conversation requires knowledge, but to cultivate a healthy, effective conversation, the instigator also needs wisdom. That person needs the knowledge to speak, but the wisdom to listen, and the discernment to know when knowledge or wisdom is appropriate.

Speaking can only come from what the speaker already knows, but the potential involved in listening is so much more. Listening opens the door to learning, receiving and even giving someone the gift of simply having a place to release what he/she needs to release. There is so, so much value in having a place, a person, a listening…