On Talking and Listening

Being Balanced in Speaking and Listening:

Humanity; It has reached the level of today's "civilized society" by working hard, overcoming obstacles and shedding a lot of sweat. Civilization is also the summary of a story that extends from Stone Age people to today's people wandering in space.

Working hard, overcoming obstacles, getting along well with others, communicating with others along the lines of understanding and tolerance, transferring experience and knowledge are important conditions for a developed society.

The first step of the development culture and the balance of social relations is to talk or listen. According to the requirements of the environment, people move into speaking and listening positions. For example, the first expectation from a person attending a conference is to listen to the lecturers. If a time is allowed for question and answer, it means that the act of speaking has started for us as soon as we ask questions based on what we have heard to the speakers during this time. Therefore, speaking and listening should be seen as an action that takes place according to the conditions as well as being related to each other. Knowing when to speak and when to shut up (listen) is one of the most important virtues in social life and human relations. Talking and listening are, in a sense, an environment for mutual exchange of ideas. It is necessary to underline the importance of speaking and listening in order to understand each other, to support each other, and to get results in unity in physical and intellectual work.

To talk:

Confucius drew attention to the effect of oratory in speech, with the proposition "You cannot understand the power of people without understanding the power of words".

However, we often hear; mouth speaks. But listening is rarely mentioned. I often observe my surroundings, when three or five people come together in social gatherings, one of them takes the floor and continues almost without being silent. He doesn't leave it to anyone else. Such behavior is first and foremost a sign of disrespect. The famous philosopher and statesman emperor Marcus Aurelius' words "Listening is the greatest kindness we can show" seem to be the summary of this subject. However, people who talk all the time are compelled to miss thinking.

Both those who speak and those who listen are lucky to think. As people get information and learn new things, they want to share it. He also speaks as a natural consequence of knowing. Let's not forget how important listening is as much as speaking in sharing information. As human beings, what is expected of us is to think about the good and the truth for the benefit of humanity and to share them with others by using the mind. If they have similar or different opinions, it is to listen, understand and produce better and more useful thoughts and solutions together.

We Turks as a society mostly like to talk. Listening is hard for most of us for some reason. So much so that when someone speaks, even if that man is silent, there are many of us who say that I should speak. It is very valuable to really listen to each other, to try to understand what the other person is telling us, by adding our heart to our ears, so that we can find a place for ourselves in his inner world.

What is Listening?

Listening is the lifeblood of our relationships. It is also difficult to speak. While speaking, we convey what we have in mind, what we know, what we think, and even if we have a preparation, we convey the ready-made texts to our interlocutor. While listening, we need to distance ourselves from our thoughts and mind whispers and concentrate only on what is being said. We have to focus fully on listening. Listening is not just the perception of sound waves by the ears. Therefore, when we listen, we easily become a prisoner of our own world. We break out without speaking. When we return to the listening environment, we see that we lag behind what is spoken. From that moment on, we find it very difficult to understand what is being said.

During listening, the person is expected to be able to listen patiently without adding his own agenda to the conversation. Contrary to popular belief, quality communication is based on listening rather than speaking. As long as we maintain eye contact with the speaker, we can transfer our sense of listening to the speaker. It is a prerequisite to be a good listener, even at the end of a conversation or even in a two-way conversation, taking into account the mood of the narrator and asking questions about the subject. The person speaking, who needs to explain, first of all expects to be understood. In today's society, the lives of all of us have changed, we started to get lonely. In this new order, the most important and valuable thing that people can give to each other is to listen. It's important to catch what the speaker really means, without being biased. Listening is the strongest bridge that can be built between people. Hearing is one thing, listening is another. You must be a real listener.

Conclusion:

As a result of people reaching out to each other, benefiting from their experiences, reasoning and exchanging ideas, civilization actually reached a certain level by listening and talking to each other. Talking is the words that come out from our lips, which are found by the mind, approved by the mind, passed through the filter of the heart, and which do not contradict goodness, love and science, and which are approved. Listening, on the other hand, is to enrich the culture and knowledge of the society gradually, by carefully filtering the positive words that add value to the knowledge of the listener. In short, knowing how to speak and listen is wisdom. Moderate speaking and careful listening are two key concepts in solving mutual problems.