“Hello!” I said breezily.
“Good, thanks!” the woman on my bus replied, her eyes momentarily flicking up from her phone.
That was the moment I realised that listening in everyday situations, where the stakes are not high but the connection is a civil nicety, is dead.
We are poorer for it.
Much has been made about people not talking to each other, but instead being glued to their phones.
This is achingly true, but the problem goes deeper: when a person does actually speak, the ability to respond appropriately seems to have been lost.
Has listening and engaging become some mysterious lost art?
A woman at a presentation I recently gave in Caloundra shared an experience she had during the worst week of her life: when her husband was dying.
At her local shop, a checkout operator asked, “How’s your day going?”, as they are trained to do.
On the Monday, she responded with: “My husband is dying, so not so good.”
On Wednesday, the query was: “So, how’s your day?”.
Her answer was: “My husband died this morning.”
On Friday, she was asked: “So what are your plans for the day?”
Her answer? “I have an appointment with the funeral director to organise my husband’s funeral.”
Questions are asked with no interest in the answer.
Sometimes an answer doesn’t even register.
Most often, the inquisitor has no idea what to do if your answer is real and raw.
I was recently walking on the beach with a friend I do not see often, and she wanted a photo of us together.
I asked a young woman nearby, who was standing with her friends, if she would mind taking a photo.
“Sure!” she responded, happily.
Then she handed me her phone and assembled her friends and posed for a group shot.
Gobsmacking!
I have another friend who demonstrated what I think is the right recipe to improve our collective difficulty.
When I started telling him a story, he stopped me.
“Can you please just wait one moment?” he asked me.
“I want to give you my full attention but I just need to finish responding to this text.”
In work or life, when we ask a question, let’s resolve to listen to the answer.
And for kindness and civility’s sake, let’s be deliberate about it.
Dr Jane Stephens is a UniSC journalism lecturer, media commentator and writer. The opinions expressed are those of the author. These are not the views of Sunshine Coast News’ publishers.
