How often do we engage in deep conversations with other people? How well do we listen? It seems to me that the unwillingness or inability to effectively listen to each others’ stories is a significant contributing factor to misunderstanding and damaged relationships.
The folks at StoryCorps have created the National Day of Listening for the day after Thanksgiving. The idea is that we set aside an hour to record and share conversations with family, friends, or neighbors. They even provide an online do-it-yourself instruction guide. You can listen to examples from others here.
I applaud StoryCorps for this initiative. Having a national day of listening strikes me as strong evidence that we don’t practice listening very well or very often. I like this concept and only hope some of us will make listening a more important part of our everyday lives so we don’t need to set aside a special day to do so.