Sometimes I marvel at my seeming inability to not listen well. It’s not just in the realm of conversation that I speak but more so in the daily litany of sounds that abound; they seem to, as it were, escape my hearing.
Yesterday, after I wrapped up a day at work and was walking to my car I found myself thinking about something a coworker said to me a day or so ago regarding mindfulness. I have read a lot about mindfulness in my Buddhist excursions and philosophical trail blazing. I’m fully aware of what it means and of the specific meditation technique to funnel my thoughts down to … nothing as I focus on my breath and struggle to harness my inner world.
What I am not so adept at is being mindful of what is around me, i.e., the clicking sound of the keyboard I’m pressing my fingers down on as I type, the brrrr of the A/C unit in our office that churns out cold or warm air, the voices on the other side of the wall from where I sit and a menagerie of other audible snippets.
Maybe we humans are just geared in such a way as to cancel these routine sounds out in order to survive a day and keep from going insane. The only problem herein is that I think we have a tendency to cancel out others in our daily routines.
What leads me to disregard the sounds of the wind causing the leaves to rustle also inclines me to not listen well to the human element that surrounds me each day.
I want to be a better listener.
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