You have become stone deaf now. When you don’t understand a word of what your child says and you get frustrated beyond measures. Sometimes, we all have to go through the ignominy of not understanding what the other person is talking about. This happens so often nowadays that you are giving up on yourself more than ever. Either you believe you have become deaf or the other person is speaking in a foreign language.
Everyone goes through this phase and no one can avoid it. You meet your to be wife and understand every finer nuances of what she says in the earlier part of life when you were wooing her. Her words sound like the sweetest words you have ever heard, dripping with honey. But as she grows on you after many years after marriage, you develop selective hearing. You can never hear the words when she tells you to get something immediately from the market, straighten up the living room since her parents are coming, take the dog out for a walk and her allowance is insufficient to buy her a saree that month. Your hearing further deteriorates when she insists on going to her parents house that weekend.
Your son has grown up and insists on staying out with his friends that night, hopes to get his girlfriend over for the evening, brings his rowdy friends over to just chill out or play their stupid games at your house. You cannot even hear a whisper about these activities. You are busy with your work or you have gone stone deaf.
Your daughter is wearing the skimpiest of dresses or she insists she has to meet her friends at some bar that late night. She has an evening out with her best friends and she insists her boyfriend is not in town but her best friends boyfriend and his rapscallion gang of friends are all going to be there. You haven’t heard her say any of those words to you.
Now when all these people tell you that they had given you a fair warning, you insist you weren’t ever informed or sounded of in even a cursory way. You make such a big scene of not being a part of the family and always kept away by the growing brood. Your temper rises like the summer heat in the tropics and you feel completely distanced by the family. They didn’t even feel good to communicate with you regarding their growing years.
Now is it a matter of listening or have you blanked out these things deliberately? You have a fantastic hearing when you are watching a game on the Telly. You have excellent hearing when your pals call you over for an evening drink to their houses. But why then has your hearing gone down when it comes to listening to your wife and children?
Your daughter insists you need a hearing aid. You desist that saying that you can hear. You reluctantly go for the tests and there you find out that the higher the sounds, you are unable to hear. The audiologist takes you through the sound box and every test points out that your hearing has gone down.
But you know damn well that it is only that which you wish to hear you can. And nobody in this world can tell you otherwise. Let them believe whatever they want to. Old age is a comforter for you. You can behave like a lunatic too, yet the world will pardon you. No one can touch you there. You relax!
Our world is full of such people. Be it our parents or grandparents. They behave exactly in the above mentioned manner. What makes them stop listening? Lack of love or lack of attachments? You can blame it on anything, yet this is how the world turns out for them. Let’s get this straight. Everyone will someday go through this. So why is it so much of a wonder now to you? Why do you feel it’s unique to these folks?
The greatest effort to listen is with the mind. Not with the organ of hearing. So these folks have stopped listening to you deliberately. The mind processes other stuff perfectly, yet it refuses to listen.
Training the mind to do what is needed is within your own purview. So if you wish to hear that then you can. Hearing defects or bad eyesight is a natural problem but aggravating it with the mind is a still bigger issue. You can train yourself into using your senses to peak capacity only by training your mind better. Your body parts too can function better if you can regulate your mind and thoughts better. Feel good about yourself every time and insist that all is well with you and you can see the wonders of synchronous working of your mind with body parts. Be good to both.
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