If you’re like me when I want to get to my destination delays annoy me.

I feel embarrassed how often I’ve heartlessly passed wrecks on the road and felt annoyed.

People had their lives altered, perhaps injured or worse, and I’m just glad I can move on with my day.

God challenges us to “be kind and merciful to one another.” 1

God challenges me to be less self-centered!

Wrecks On Our Road

We might not have a chance to stop for a motorist, but will we stop to listen?

In my fourth in a series on helping our child, lover or friend open up today we’re examining our tendency to give advice.

Maybe it’s just my problem,

Maybe I’m the only one reading these words who thinks “I know” better, who knows “what’s going on”, who can “see more clearly” than anyone else can, and who realized “what this is going to lead to”, but, probably not.

Julian Treasure guided the audience at a recent TED.com conference in the art of listening.  I loved it; here are my excerpts.  The video is here.

“…we’re losing our listening. Why did I say that? Well there are a lot of reasons for this.

First of all, we invented ways of recording — first writing, then audio recording and now video recording as well. The premium on accurate and careful listening has simply disappeared.

Secondly, the world is now so noisy…it’s just hard to listen; it’s tiring to listen. Many people take refuge in headphones, but … in this scenario, nobody’s listening to anybody.