Lend Your Ears

I wasn’t always the type to make New Year’s resolutions. Like many others, I’ve been disillusioned by aunts and uncles swearing off things I know they couldn’t possibly live without. Resolutions are tricky things—it’s not easy to find a goal that you can work toward for an entire year that you can also actually achieve. Too many resolutions also prove too abstract to measure, leaving their maker with an unfinished feeling.

Last year, amid all this self-reflection, a resolution hit me which seemed so perfectly substantial, feasible, and important that I knew it was exactly the right kind of challenge.

I resolved in the waning moments of 2007 to become a better listener in 2008. Sure, I wasn’t the worst listener around—I could certainly carry on a coherent conversation. But there were times when I would repeatedly ask the same questions, fail to understand the conclusion of a story, or even bid someone new farewell with the wrong name. And while it may not have cost me any friendships, my simple lack of attention in common verbal circumstances made me feel self-centered too often.

Looking back on this year, I do believe that I became a better listener. Though it might be easier to keep track of quantifiable things like pounds lost or books read, I hope that Harvard’s student body will consider adopting a similar New Year’s resolution for 2009. Here, as anywhere, people tend to get caught up in their own beliefs and concerns, something even more problematic outside of the classroom than in. This resolution does not regard academics; I am not pushing that we all listen to our professors more. It is meant instead for the daily interactions we have with our friends and peers.

In conversation, are you racing to say the next thing, or really listening, processing, and contemplating what someone else says? Research conducted on listening shows that a majority of the time subjects engage in what is called competitive listening—focusing on their own thoughts rather than the words of the person talking. Obviously, being a good listener doesn’t mean stifling your own thoughts entirely, but it does mean giving the people you are listening to the cognitive room for their ideas.

While neurologically this may seem like a Herculean task (we think at about 2000 words a minute, but can only hear 175 words a minute), with patience and practice, we can make more of our thoughts be about the words we hear. Not only will our understanding of the other person improve, but that understanding will lead to better responses on our part. Researchers have devised a slew of strategies for better listening, but the solution doesn’t really come down to asking more follow-up questions or “predicting outcomes.” What better listening does depend on is effort, in slowing down one’s thought process, and allowing others the time to speak.

While listening to people should be the most fundamental part of this resolution, it should also be about creating audio diversity. Those who listen to their iPod every second traveling to and from somewhere are missing out on precious sounds. The New England wind, for example, especially at this time of year, can create symphonies not available on iTunes. We rarely close our eyes to the bustling, vibrant city we inhabit, but seemingly all the time we close our ears to it. This year, resolve to be a better listener, to your friends and to your world. It won’t be easy, but good resolutions never are.


Marcel E. Moran ‘11, a Crimson editorial writer, is a human evolutionary biology concentrator in Eliot House.