Listening is a gift of our attention

In the end, we have a gift we can share, and keeping it to ourselves preserves us nothing.

Attention is as precious as our irreplaceable time. Giving our attention to someone is an opportunity to feel kindness for another person.

What do we do? How do we lean into relationships? Attention is the most basic form of love. If you think about it, that’s a really profound statement. That our undivided attention is probably the most valuable thing that we have to give to each other. And more and more it is the most difficul thing to give to each other.

~ Robert Waldinger from, The Science of Happiness on the Big Ideas podcast

We know our own attention, once paid, is not retrievable. We know we can give our attention, and that the other person can’t really keep it. We can’t collect attention from others and stock-pile it for our own later re-use. It’s exactly that ephemeral nature of attention which makes it precious.

In the end, we have a gift we can share, and keeping it to ourselves preserves us nothing. Instead, we can experience more kindness by intentionally giving it away.

Can you notice when you do wholly give your attention to someone?

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