We’ve all been there… It's the holidays and a family member we rarely see has just come off one of the following: a Fox News kick, an MSNBC kick, or just listened to the Joe Rogan experience on the car ride over.
Either way… we are all about to be in for a painful conversation.
Having new ideas and fresh information is a wonderful thing. It keeps us motivated to learn more and is a healthy way for us to push the boundaries of our understanding. The problem lies in believing that it is now our job to evangelize this information to every person we meet.
I grew up in church, so I know more than most what it feels like to talk to people who always think it is their job to “speak into your life.” Listen, requested feedback is a good thing when asked for, of course, but the problem with speaking into someone’s life is that it directly prevents you from learning what you have yet to discover.
So next time you learn something new, instead of evangelizing your newly found wisdom, remember how you gained this new piece of information! Listening…
I believe that our whole world would be much, much better off if we stopped preaching to each other and we started seeking out knowledge from each other.
Does this prove the "why you have 2 ears and 1 mouth" theory? Thanks for sharing!
This feels similar to another TED Talk about listening about when we approach communication as an opportunity to listen, we gain more from the experience. I do appreciate the note about not evangelizing the new information, though - it's so easy to get excited about new information that we forget that spreading the word, whatever word that might be, cannot be shouting from the rooftops. How we present that information is just as important as the information itself.
Thanks for that reflection, Jacob Matthew!