To hear what you should hear

By Celia, Kuan Hoi Ian

Living in a hustle and bustle environment, people hear different kinds of
sounds such as music, noise, conversations, etc. Among those kinds of sounds, conversations require more techniques when one is hearing it, as this is part of essential communications human beings are born to deal with.
Besides, how one hears will decide the way one responds to the others, which will affect the impression formed by others, or even affect the relationship with others. Therefore, people should hear carefully. However, sometimes, it is inevitable for one to hear what he or she does not want to hear. Thus, selective hearing
is always applied in daily life. Yet, selective hearing may have some impact on the listeners.
Jerry Hampton is an expert of Community Building (CB) workshops who has conducted nearly 300 of the CB-type workshops in the US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Germany and England. According to Hampton, the definition of selective listening is when a person hears another but selects not to hear what is being said by choice or desire to hear some other messages. This can take several forms and results in acting out in destructive ways. An example is to become passive or aggressive by pretending to hear and agree to what is said when actually your intent is NOT to act on the message, but make the other person think you will. Another form is to act on what you want to hear instead of what is said. Continuous selective listening is one of the ways to destroy a relationship.
Selective hearing is a disturbed behavior. According to Stanton Samenow, an American psychologist and writer, when one is performing selective hearing, his "mental filter" only turns to what suits him, and "tunes out" someone who's trying to make a point. The reason for this is that he is not prepared to submit himself to the principle of conduct of the speaker and he knows what the speaker is going to talk about. In short, one cannot be in the combative/closed mode at the same time. Therefore, this is a good chance for the speaker to manipulate the listener as the listener is in a combative/closed mode as concluded by Dr. George Simon in his book "In Sheep's Clothing".
Cody Ian, a 26-year-old office lady who worked in a Hong Kong listed company located in Macao, had been applying selective hearing until one day she made a big mistake in her work. "I used to think that I could handle my job very well as I was a quick learner and thought that this kind of mistake was impossible. I was totally wrong and felt regret for not taking my senior's advice," said Ian. Because of the mistake she made, the company laid her off and one of her colleagues. "I shouldn't have been such an egocentric. I will try to accept other's advice and opinions after this. I think I have learned a lesson."
Instead of hearing what you want to hear, hearing what one should hear is a far better method of avoiding listening to what one doesn't like since the listeners may miss some important points or be manipulated by the speaker. Therefore, listeners should listen carefully during conversations.