“Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you would have preferred to talk.” These gut-churning words of Columnist Doug Larson were recently re-conveyed into my soul when my wife read me an aggravating story which she had seen on social media and had saved the page in her mobile device for me to read knowing her husband to be inspired by such story lines.
By Liberty Mwariwangu Sr
It is barely a month after a thirty-five-year-old single mother had bought her first brand-new Mercedes and was so in love with the her new ride that for most of the days she had forgot to share personal and love moments with her six-year-old son, moments her little sunny boy was accustomed to and so dearly cherished. The boy tried to reach out to her mum and inform her how desperately he missed the nights they would cuddle and watch cartoons together as well as popcorn weekends. “Honestly mum I miss your love…and I am tired of your forehead kisses.” He protested.
One fine Saturday morning the mother was busy doing laundry in the bathtub when the boy strayed to the back of the house where he picked himself a sharp-edged stone and began to excavate through the mud, in his mind seeing himself chatting a huge truck through the cross-border highway. When he finally got to the front of the house he saw the new car parked and thought to convey a message to his mother that said, “I love you mum and I miss you”. However this time around instead of darting into the house to tell his mother he simply paced towards her mother’s new navy blue toy where he decided to convert his cross border truck into a writing instrument.
At around the same time the mother was now lining her washing outside the house when she heard some tiny screeching noises. She strode to the front of the house and saw the entire bonnet scratched in gibberish and her boy standing besides the car holding his sharp-edged stone. The mother’s anger mounted and picked up a hard electric cable and started beating her son.
The moment she felt her anger was satiated she opened her eyes to a debilitating sight. The boy was severely injured and was by this time unconscious. The rest is history but the boy suffered life injuries; a broken rib and broken fingers. When she left the child writhing on a hospital bed to bring some supplies from the car she took time to understand the scratch on the car. It read exactly what her little son had tried to speak to her; “mum I love you and I miss you.”
To most people talking comes more natural than listening. They hate listening because subconsciously it’s ingrained within them to believe that people around will take that for a weakness. Even during discussions some people only listen to answer back, impeding the actual object of listening. We should listen to learn. When you listen with the spirit of learning you ignite a teachable spirit within you and with the very same rock thwarting the spirit of pride. Pride impedes hearing in the end it cripples understanding. A man who gives himself to it is foolish and shallow thus he makes it impossible for him to learn anything new. Most help comes to such people once but because they treat it with contempt, it never returns to them. Help come to those who embrace it!
If experience is the best teacher then choose to learn from other people’s experiences, this way you wax greater in a short space of time by avoiding the traps and pits that other people experienced. Had the mother in the narrated story listen to her son in time by keeping her priorities in line, she would have avoided the emotional injury she caused her son. Had she sought to understand the meaning of the scratch on the bonnet, she would have benefited a love message from reading it and gotten a chance to repent before causing such grievous harm. Mostly we realize that the opportunities of learning are gone past us when we stand in danger but how foolish we become when we let such reminders to vapor from our spirits. Treat every person you encounter as having something to teach you and when you wake up to a new day embrace it as an opportunity to learn.
Learning prepares us for the opportunities ahead and it is impossible to get it without cultivating the virtue of listening as basketball coach John Wooden said; “When opportunity comes, it’s too late to prepare.” Learning associates with all greatness just as all mental smallness is fueled by “I know it all” attitude. Attitude is a choice, so is teachability. We can choose the pathway to a better future or life by developing a teachable spirit, or we can sabotage that future by pretending that we know everything required to figure it out in this life.
Speaker and author John Naisbitt said, “No one subject or set of subjects will serve you for a foreseeable future, let alone the rest of your life. Maximizing your potential in life requires extensive acumen which only comes through the learning portal. Greatness is not a one man job, you need the contribution of others to be successful and that only comes through teachability.
Liberty Mwariwangu Sr. is an Author, Columnist, Transformational-Motivational speaker, Consultant, Purpose expert and Senior pastor with Spirit Culture Churches Worldwide a non-denominational movement headquartered in Harare Zimbabwe. He is the founder of the Global Success Institute(GSI); an institution targeted at developing and enabling young people to make impact in their various spheres of influence so they can dominate in life. He makes appearances on television and radio speaking on purpose and motivation for a profitable and fulfilling life. He can be reached at +263774357394 or libsmwariwangu@gmail.com
