Are You Listening?

An interesting thing happened today in class. Half of us were asked to leave the room, and when Sister McKenna came out she told us that we needed to go sit next to someone and tell them about a life-changing event that had happened in our lives. So the first thing that pops into my head is Euro's death (which I wrote about in a blog a few weeks ago)- and so I go in and sit down next to a guy named Brett and start telling him about Euro. He was blatantly not listening to what I said... it made me not want to keep telling the story so I skipped some details so I could just get the story done and over with as soon as possible. Then when I got towards the end Brett turned towards me and started listening very intently. I was so shocked by the sudden turn-of-events that I laughed a little because I thought he was ridiculous. I of course realized that them not listening was part of what we were supposed to be learning in class. (Brett felt horrible after for ignoring me most of the story and apologized, bless him.) I learned that we need to be better listeners if we want to build relationships with others and give them our full attention because they deserve it. I felt horrible when I could tell that Brett wasn't listening and I wouldn't ever want anyone else to feel like I did.