Listen to everyone
If you want to achieve success, listen to everyone but no one. — Quote
Haha, isn't that hilarious? I deduce it as listening to everyone's opinion regarding a situation but having an opinion of your known, strongly governed by the mental compass which you dearly hold.
Success as we all know it is defined differently by different societies. For a Dilli person, largely success comes from owning the best car and having a foreign trip every other month. I was aghast at the comparison and evaluation people go through when I lived there for 3 years. In any conversation or most conversations, I always used to feel that, I was being price tagged. Haven't we seen those video clips or advertisements of some clothing companies where a price tag is added to all pieces of the garment on the dummy which presents the ware? I often used to feel like a dummy that needs to wear the best around, so that after the tagging process, my tag balance sores high in the branding scale. Questions like Do you own a business or are you running it and How many shares do you have seem like normal conversations. To the contrary to academics and success through them were considered the epitome in communities which I am used to, was a bit shocking and disturbing.
Listening — that's a skill I realize. An essential one is to learn new aspects and be curious. I have noticed in myself when I am chattering (you know what is chatter, you are talking, but something is tugging the brain which is actually making us realize that what you are talking about isn't important to yourself. But you still put that out for what reasons, I am yet to find!), I am not ready to take in any information. So here listening is zero, and thus that's a lost opportunity to understand something else.
But if you just listen, and not put the point across, wouldn't you be failing yourself? But there were some aha moments, very very few of them, when listening has helped to put out an effective point in just a few words, but very concise and considering all of it which was listened to. Listening is an elusive superpower.
Listening to whom is the question, we have to make a conscious choice of whom we want to hear to. But do we have that choice all the time, no starting of our life, there is a very few options available, whoever is around we would have to listen, observe and learn from them. So it would be unfortunate in most of our cases these influences have been not very great and hence the learning and conditioning aren't life-serving. But once an adult, we could make a conscious decision to listen to whom we want to listen to and whom we think aligns with us. But still, after all this listening, what we put out as our decisions, choices, and actions have to be our own.
Own, what is this own! Very important and a lot to be discovered in this. We cannot be swayed by the opinion of others when this “own” is created. They can be just inputs that are considered. The own has to come from the core which is hugely influenced by what is in it. Difficult to achieve but most essential!
