How to think?

In the past year, I’ve been trying to improve my skills of listening and paying attention to what someone else is saying without thinking of what I’m going to say. I think the majority of us when we are conversing with someone whether it’s having a debate or even just a simple chat about work instantly start to think about what we’re gonna say. It’s almost as if half our brain is paying attention, and the other half is trying to figure out the rebuttal to whatever that person has said. I catch myself doing it all the time its an active awareness that takes self-awareness and honesty with yourself. As much as self-aware as we all wanna think we are there are plenty of times that I think naturally as human beings, we just tend to shut off, almost oblivious to what’s around us. I catch myself doing this so many times throughout the day. I think it all comes together with learning how to think, rather than what to think about in a famous commencement speech by the author, David Foster Wallace who wrote one of my favorite books, called Infinite Jest. In the commencement speech, he talks about active mindfulness not letting our thoughts be so automatic, and forcing yourself to recognize them and engage with them. Challenging our assumptions and the difficulty of knowing how to think.

This concept that I feel like not all of us are aware of, and I see a lot of this at my job and many jobs that I’ve had, especially in the customer service world. This involves everyone from children to adults but frankly, I don’t expect many children to understand this but adults with a college education or life experience. I do expect them to know how to think. I’ve worked in many jobs, and many of them have been customer service jobs and you get a first-hand example of the type of people who know how to think and are actively trying to be mindful of where they’re at and what they’re doing. I think this all ties in with what my point was in the beginning, which was paying attention when someone is talking to you, and instead of thinking of what you are going to say you become completely present in what is being told to you. I’d love to write more about this in another blog but for this is it. I’m also not writing this to be treated as a guidance, or assume myself as some sort of figure that thinks he is self-aware of these very concepts, but actually as one who understands that i am a victim to these very ideas. And every day is an active pursuit to be self-aware, to be mindful, and to know how to think in my everyday life, whether it’s the best day of my life, or the most mundane rinse and repeat type of day.