2021 was hard. It was filled with anguish, anxiety, anger, and arguing. We’ve seen society continue to crack and relationships fracture over vaccines, and masks, and human rights, and abortion, and women sports, and the political landscape, and Black Lives Matter. Yet despite the turn of the calendar and the optimism of a better year ahead, the issues we face as human beings today will continue to exist. How we choose to treat each other though, can change.
I’ve heard and seen and experienced arguments between strangers on social media, family members and friends. Undoubtedly, it is incredibly hard to stay level headed in disagreements on topics that are so divisive. The easier answer is to get angry and get mean and to be ‘right’. I can’t say I am faultless in not being mean or not listening when having hard conversations where I vehemently disagree with the person I am talking to, but I can say that I am actively trying to be better. I think we all need to try.
Listening can help us bridge the gap between ‘us’ and ‘them’. I heard a quote once that said, ‘You can choose to listen, or you can choose to be right.’
That one hit me, right in the gut. I love being right…
In 2022, my goal is to listen more. To listen to people’s fears. To learn where people came from and to understand why they are the way they are. To have the humility in knowing that I do not have all the answers, and neither do you. When we listen to each other we can see one another clearly and develop deeper connections.
For me, it’s learning to live inside the ‘both/and’. Realizing multiple things can and do exist at one time. While holding both of those notions at once is challenging, it is also necessary. You can disagree with someone and still have many good things to say about them. Loving someone and disagreeing with them both and do exist. And while we continue to move towards a more divisive world, I think remembering that is important. If we can start there, we can have compassion and empathy, and maybe even be able to listen more openly.
Organizational psychologist Adam Grant wrote an incredible book called, Think Again, that is based on the premise of allowing yourself to rethink your assumptions. If we don’t attach our opinions to our identity, then we allow ourselves permission to change our opinions. For that to happen we need to have less of the answers. This gives us permission to listen.
The practice of listening will be hard and I know that I’ll get things wrong. But listen here, what’s worse than getting it wrong, is not trying it at all.
Sara
