Dear friend,
“I know, I know, I know.” How often do you catch yourself saying that?
“I know” is a declaration that refuses to be a listener. It says: I have done this before, I am experienced, and I will let everyone know it. But what you know may not be so. What you believe to be true may have been true only in a certain context, a certain setting. And when the ground is shifting beneath us, when new anomalies keep appearing, what was once known is no longer reliable.
Say someone brings you a problem. You think you have seen this one before and already have the solution, so you stop listening and start dispensing advice. But perhaps there are nuances that make this situation different, and what you know does not apply. Being open to not knowing is the beginning of real listening. Insisting on “I know” is a prison of ignorance, where you shut the door on learning anything new.
Instead of “I know,” try: “Hmm, interesting. I know something about this, but there may be something new here too. Tell me more.” In those moments it helps to remember that what matters most is not what you already know, but that the person speaking feels heard.
This is bound up with the mood of the problem-solver. So many of us live there, seeing the world as a tangle of problems we must solve. The problem-solver believes they already hold the answers, and that listening is a waste of time because they already know the solution. But the world is not a problem to be solved. The world is a drift you must navigate, and that asks for tuning in and generous listening, and for giving the whole enterprise of problem-solving a rest.
With care,Saqib