A father once told me, "I can't understand my kid. He just won't listen to me at all."
"Let me restate what you just said," I replied. "You don't understand your son because he won't listen to you?"
"That's right," he replied.
"Let me try again," I said. "You don't understand your son because he won't listen to you?"
"That's what I said," he impatiently replied.
"I thought that to understand another person, you needed to listen to him," I suggested.
"Oh!" he said. There was a long pause. "Oh!" he said again, as the light began to dawn. "Oh, yeah! But I do understand him. I know what he is going through. I went through the same thing myself. I guess what I don't understand is why he won't listen to me."
This little story supports Stephen's fifth habit - "Seek first to understand, then to be understood". If we could only break our habits and learn to listen, then we might understand the world a little more clearly and put our knowledge to more effective use.
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