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Listening

In keeping with my alarmist postings about people being "checked out," I am thinking about the lack of good listening that goes on in my world. Probably yours too. How many times do you feel like someone is just keeping quiet while you are talking, waiting for the chance to insert what they were going to say, regardless of your point? How many times have you done this, if you're being honest with yourself? I'm a major offender myself. Oftentimes, I've thought up something witty and likely very relevant...to what was said five minutes earlier.

 This week, along with practicing good sleep hygiene (damn you, Words with Friends!), I'm going to practice listening more and talking less. The challenge I have right now is that we're all competing for airtime and people are so used to being interrupted that they talk and talk and talk if no one busts in. My experiment will be to see how long it takes for someone to finish what they have to say and then hold my tongue for a few seconds more.

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