National Day of Listening

HILLARY
National Public Radio and The Corporation for Public Broadcasting have designated November 28, 2008 as the first annual National Day of Listening. Their mission is to help people honor and celebrate one another’s lives through listening. Their organization offers scripts and guidance in creating and recording a dialogue.

I’m so thrilled about this tool to help our country move toward greater communication. I know what a difference our conversations have made in my life, and in the lives of those around me. If you actively listen you cannot help but grow as an individual, and as a community, and I’m so excited to feel the difference that this National Day of Listening will have on our collective psyche. People who are willing to participate will come to understand that communication is the inspiration that changes lives.

A National Day of Listening could not come at a more useful time. We are a deeply divided nation, and so often are unwilling to listen to opposing opinions. A frequent example is the religious right writing off the secular left, and vice versa. If we, as individuals, are willing to listen to each other and learn from our differences we might be able to move forward as a nation. I am concerned about the bunker mentality brewing on many issues. If taken seriously, a National Day of Listening just might let everyone take a pause from his or her ideology and create some space for positive communication that will benefit us all.

JACK
What a fantastic idea. It just makes sense to set aside a day so that we will all understand how important it is to listen. This would apply not only to listening to each other with opposing views, but to those who think the same way we do. Don’t think for a moment that those who agree with us are without fault and act with total logic. Listening to all the sounds around us helps us to better understand our surroundings. How many times have your tried desperately to explain something and are interrupted with the other person’s idea before he has been able to hear and understand what you have to say? It would be extraordinarily valuable if we would listen with an open mind to all those that oppose us, and I mean everybody. There is nothing that I despise more than the Nazis who brought about the Holocaust, but if I really listen to them maybe I would find out what motivated them to do some of those heinous acts. Even the infamous Dr. Mingale, who used Jewish bodies to perform his experiments, would tell you that he was seeking solutions that would give him the clues to treat various infirmities. I listened to the animal rights people, and this listening created a California law, Prop 2, making it illegal to raise animals in a tiny area. I am sure that evangelists have something positive to say that I have thus far ignored, simply because I haven’t listened. There are times that I have come into a discussion with one idea and have reversed myself because I really listened to what the opposition had to say. There was a proverb that said, “We have two ears, and one mouth.” Metaphorically we should listen twice as much as we speak.

Through the years, in my business life, I have achieved a reputation of being a great negotiator. When asked my secret, I say, “I listen to what the other guy wants and then I try to find a way to give it to him.” Does it not make sense to teach this technique in the schools?

HILLARY
Being able to reach a compromise is entirely dependant on listening. We’ve spoken many times about the role of listening in business and in our personal relationships. If you are unwilling to listen you are unwilling to be successful. Furthermore, in this difficult financial time one of the greatest issues that we face is anxiety brought on by uncertainty.

The people in my generation have never faced a time like this. There have been military actions, there has been greed in business, there has been downsizing, but we’ve never had all of these forces acting on us at one time. That being said, there have been times like these before, and there are still people around who have lived through them. If we take the time to seek out people who lived through The Great Depression, or that fought against, or in the War in Vietnam, if we talk with them about their experiences then we can diminish the collective anxiety that we are feeling because we can learn from them and create solutions for our time. Also, by acknowledging these people and their experiences, we bring them into the process of finding a solution, instead of relegating them to a time past. We need all the help we can get. On a more personal level, the National Day of Listening gives us an opportunity to create a bridge to a relationship that may have been damaged in the past.

JACK
You just struck a nerve. At 85, I have lived through the Great Depression, fought in WWII, and was a party to the jubilant recovery, both mentally and economically. I listen now to President-Elect Obama talking about a massive public works program. If you ask me, and listen, I can tell you that this is not new that it was done in 1933 under FDR with much less resources, but with great results. People did go back to work, and the gloom lifted. We just have to listen to our grandparents, and our neighbors. We must do so with an open mind, and not discount their age or the fact that it was a different place and a different time. Our problems are amazingly similar. What an advantage it is to listen to their stories, and understand what worked and what didn’t work. Sometimes we listen and buy a bad story. In the 80s there was an important movie that centered on our economy. The main character Gordon Gecco said, “Greed is good.” Somehow we bought that story, and now we realize that unchecked greed is destructive, and the resulting fallout affects us all. So we have to really listen, and then decide on what path we will follow. I have had many commercial triumphs, sometimes by using them as an example young people will say “times have changed,” and that will not work anymore. Whether we’re talking about macroeconomics or computerization, the simple math is that the principle remains constant. 2 + 2 will always make 4, regardless of how you compute it. I have always been occupied with the art of listening, and whatever success I have enjoyed has been greatly attributed to listening and to discriminating with what I hear so that it becomes part of who I am.

HILLARY
You can find out more about the National Day of Listening at their website www.nationaldayoflistening.org. This project can change your life and your community, if you are willing to listen.

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