Today I tried this new feature (new for me anyway) called Quickpost – you open a website and if you find it interesting, jump to the Quickpost website and it automatically generates a blog entry with the title and the hyperlink for that website. All I have to fill in is the additional comment so here I write.
In thirty minutes I will have this weekly conference call which I still don’t get used to after three weeks. I am a rather slow starter regarding the conversation – listen, listen, listen, comment, listen, listen, comment, listen, comment & speech, listen, comment & speech & rant & shout.
After a while I realize everybody else but I get turned off. I assume I have to listen more carefully and the next time one more listening period is added..
But maybe that’s actually backfiring. Maybe I am not getting a better listener, just getting better at squeezing my energy into the listening mode, while compressing my speaking desire to the limit. So in the long run I will end up like this: listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, speech, rant, rant, rant, shout, disgusted, disgusted.
How can I take a more balanced way of communicating? One key might be in learning how to start conversation with a natural flow. One of the reason I keep listening is I need to feel the air and read between the lines, or I think I need to do that. Catch the wave!
Hm, this conclusion is as encouraging as our prime minister’s rants on changing our constitution or sending our troops to Iraq. Or the those pseudo-psychiatrists who appear in the TV saying “Build your self-esteem” to the depressing middle-aged men who are about to throw themselves into the commuting trains.