Robert Frost was a terrific poet. But he was a terrible farmer. The first two farms he tried to run went into receivership.
He owned three farms when he died, and I suspect that he might have thought of himself as a successful farmer, but by then he was a well-known poet, and the money he made from his writing more than compensated for any losses he had on the farm.
I believe Frost was successful writing poetry because he knew how to listen to those around him.
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Had he listened as intently to the lands he worked, he would likely have been a more successful farmer. On the other hand, he may have listened to the land, but writing poems instead of doing chores takes away from a farming income.
The ability to listen is fundamental to just about anything a person does. The good parent knows how to listen to his children; the good doctor knows how to listen to his patients.
The good farmer knows how to listen to the winds, the rains, and the sun, and what all of those mean to the crops in the fields and the cattle in the barns.
The formula is simple. The more you talk, the less you listen.
Actually, the more you talk, the less likely it is that others will listen to you too, but that is another story.
The point is you cannot talk and listen at the same time.
You have to decide, are you going to talk, or are you going to listen? Frost said it best in his poem, The Road Less Travelled: “Two roads diverged in the woods, and I, I took the one less travelled, and that has made all the difference.”
Two roads, one for talking, the other for listening: the truth is the one less travelled is the road to listening.
I have no doubt that you could count the number of times that another person was actually listening to you and encouraging you to talk about those meaningful moments in your life.
When we lead marital encounter groups, we do not teach people how to talk to each other. We teach them how to listen.
When we conduct parenting classes, a significant part of the curriculum is helping parents learn to listen effectively to their children.
Listening is an art and a skill. To listen is to more than hear the words.
Listening means understanding and compassion, the ability to put yourself into another person’s life and see the world the way he or she does. Listening means setting aside your fears, hurts and anger when you are with someone.
It means not daydreaming or thinking about other things when that person is talking.
Finally, listening means not judging others. Each of us must come to our own days of judgment on our own terms.
We do not need help from our friends and families to reach it.
Jacklin Andrews is a family counsellor, living and working in west-central Saskatchewan who has taught social work for two universities. Mail correspondence in care of Western Producer, Box 2500, Saskatoon, Sask., S7K 2C4 or e-mail jandrews@producer.com.
