Listen and get involved

I forget now what I wanted to tell you! How often do we find ourselves in this position? It can be very frustrating as we lose a thought that we felt a moment ago was significant enough to share it with another. To make it worse we were probably interrupted by someone sharing a valuable insight into the dog's need to take a walk! Why do people always interrupt me on those rare occasions when I'm thinking? These rare thoughts are such precious gems of wisdom so thoughtlessly squandered.

And we then waste so much time trying to regain that momentary, fleeting vision, so fleeting that we did not have time to put it in words. I can drive all the way to Orlando trying to recall it without success, unless I'm distracted ny my wife's screaming: "Billie, the light is red". Now I'll never have the opportunity to share with Mario Rubio how to solve the country's economic problems.

It's a sad fact that brilliant minds cannot get a hearing when boring blow-hards grab the floor and
drone on and on as the audience gradually lose themselves in their own thoughts and check their watches.When they run out of words, the listeners shuffle their feet and rise to go about their business without time for discussion or sharing of ideas.

Be honest however. Did you give Joe Blow a fair hearing? Maybe he was long-winded but was there any validity in the point he was making? Or were you too involved in your owm proposal to listen to what he was suggesting? Were you bored because it was his idea, not yours, that was being presented, because he not you was in the spot-light?

We all talk about the arrogance of authority and resent its interference in our life, but we live in society governed by rules and laws which protect the rights of others and these laws also protect our rights too. But rights involve responsibilities and we cannot have one without the other.If you knew Joe was wrong, it was your right and your respobsibility to challenge him. By not doing so you acquiesced in what he was saying. That was your decision, rather than putting yourself on the line.