You Hear What You Listen For

Our attention serves as a lens through which we perceive reality, shaping our understanding based on what we actively listen for. When we focus on specific cues or signals, we become attuned to them, filtering out distractions and honing in on particular details, as the following parable illustrates.

Two men were walking along a crowded sidewalk in a downtown business area. Suddenly one exclaimed: “Listen to the lovely sound of that cricket.” But the other could not hear. He asked his companion how he could detect the sound of a cricket amid the din of people and traffic. The first man, who was a zoologist, had trained himself to listen to the voices of nature. But he didn’t explain. He simply took a coin out of his pocket and dropped it to the sidewalk, whereupon a dozen people began to look around them. “We hear,” he said, “what we listen for.”

Source: American evangelist author Kermit L. Long quoted by Karen Anderson in The Busy Manager’s Guide to Successful Meetings (1993)