Are u guilty of selective listening?

Of late, I was drawn towards an article in the straits times. The article revolves around the subject of listening and hearing, depicting the differences between them.

In essence, listening is different from hearing. Your sense of hearing is innate but as one grows older, one has learnt to filter information that is unpleasant to the ear - such as noise from construction site, conversation of people around u in public transport. Listening, however involves one's consciousness. To put it simply across, the ability to listen well allows one to focus on what pertains to u. Examples include important business discussion and interview.

The article also relates selective listening to real life. It is not uncommon to misinterpret what the other person is saying as we only listen only to what we want to hear and conveniently ignored the gist of the subject matter. This arises because we assume that we understand what the other person is going to say.

Annoying as it is, people nowadays still don't grasp the importance of good listening habits. Poor listening are often the cause of communication breakdowns in marriages, project work and stuffs.

I admit that I am guilty of selective listening at times. A common cause is personal bias against the speaker. How can u tell that u are gulity of seletive listening? If u feel yourself mentally switching off when someone speaks or consistenly discounting the opinions of various people, u are in the same boat as me.

There is no harm listening to what the other party is conveying or delivering as ultimately the interaction may be of use to u one day some time in the workforce...