The smartest person in the room is almost never the most vocal.
The focus has always been on the person who could talk the best or the most eloquent. We seem to have forgotten the other half of the equation - who could listen.
We focus on what someone has to say, but not on what they manage to hear.
Don't confuse a fast talker with a deep thinker. Don't confuse a loud talker with a credible one, either.
If we aren't loud or vocal with our opinions - if we aren't constantly expressing our beliefs - people will make them up for us. They will ascribe beliefs to us without asking a single question. It's true. Just watch and listen and you'll see.
People want to be seen and heard, that's why they give unsolicited advice and explain how they experience things. But they rarely ask us what we think or experience.
People don't really hear what we're saying most of the time because their mind is distracted with their own thoughts of explaining their own views.
When people get a belief that aligns with their views they will cling to it. If you have a differing belief just keep it to yourself. They probably aren't going to listen to it anyway.
People will argue about the morality of their perspectives. Their views don't have to be a threat to you. Listening and threatening are two very different things.
People don't expect silence, they expect us to jump in defending and debating. Don't react, just listen.
Words can be twisted into different shapes. They can be manipulated to serve agendas, opinions, and beliefs. Words are merely labels that we give to things so that we can wrap our minds around them.
In the end words don't matter so much, but actions do. It's true. Just watch...and listen.
The one who can talk the longest or the loudest is usually the one who is heard.
But it's in the silence when everything becomes more clear.
Why are we so afraid of silence?
It's as if we fear our own thoughts. Is it because we fear seeing these things in ourselves?
We have become more interested in information or tips and tricks, than curiosity,
And more persuaded by noise than silence.
Let there be silences. They are the spaces which give new and different thoughts a chance to arise.
Sometimes we have to turn down the volume of the outside world to hear what's going on inside.
Turn down the volume of the world,
And turn up the volume of silence.
Silence is often misinterpreted as not knowing.
It's also misinterpreted as boredom or disinterest.
Silence is not nothing.
On the contrary, silence speaks loudly.
The question is, do we know how to listen to it?
Photo Grant Krasner
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