Opening page…
What real listening allows
Describe a time someone listened without preparing their answer while you spoke. What did that let you say or think that ordinary conversation would not?
Being heard without a reply already forming can change what a person is able to say.
Your answer
A little context
You were telling a friend about the thing that had been eating at you, and somewhere in the middle you noticed they weren't waiting for their turn: no story of their own lined up, no advice half-loaded. So you kept going, and heard yourself say something you were meeting for the first time.
Nearby questions
- Can you choose who you love?Falling in love sounds like something that happens to you. Staying in love sounds like a decision. Arranged marriages bet on the second.
- Is anything unforgivable?Some people forgive a murderer in court. Others never forgive a friend who insists they did nothing wrong.
- Can you love someone you don't respect?Care, admiration and respect usually travel together. Sometimes you are left with only the first.
- Should you put your own people first?You can save someone you love or five strangers, but not both. Almost everyone would save their own; impartial arithmetic says five is more than one.
- If someone you love committed a serious crime, would you turn them in?The Duke of She boasted that in his country a son would testify against a father who stole a sheep. Confucius answered that where he came from, fathers cover for sons and sons for fathers, and that this is what uprightness looks like.
