Hijacking is an Epidemic. We Can Do Better.

We've all done it.  We've all had it done to us.  Hijacking the moment.  Ramrodding the conversation.  Stealing "air time".  Suffocating someone else's story.  Sometimes it's seamless and sometimes it's plain ole obnoxious. 

We get excited about a subject and before we know it, we've barged right in with our own two cents.  Hey...no harm, no foul.  Sometimes our two cents really does add up to a good multi-dimensional convo.  We pepper in our comments/questions at appropriate points in the convo and it can really season the context.

When it's obnoxious is when we are incapable of letting someone else speak.  When we feel whatever triggered our memory MUST be vocalized that very second, even if we step on someone else's words.  What do we care, we gotta say this while we're thinking of it.  Wrong.  America, just wrong. 

Bookmark that thought.  Let the other person say their peace.  More often than not, whatever comment we felt compelled to barge in with isn't even pertinent.  Why does the speaker have to hit pause and risk forgetting what the point they were making?  Human beings can be awful at listening. Everyone is way too  busy  swimming in their own mind, their own thoughts.  Thinking how we want to respond, looking for our moment to pounce and hijack the convo, feeling the immediate need to blurt out whatever triggered a memory of a" time when.....".  UGH.   

​Not all our thoughts are worth sharing.  Sure, we may have been triggered by convo and reminded of an experience we had, but that doesn't mean we HAVE to say it.  Sometimes it's more satisfying to listen.  We can let someone else shine their light without projecting our own life experience onto that moment.  If you find hearing someone else speak makes you feel you must speak, then who the heck is listening anymore?  We can't all cram onto the stage and then be shocked when it collapses. 

Know your role.  Sometimes it's to listen.  Sometimes it's to speak.  The key to anything and everything in life is BALANCE.  Let's find our conversational balance, America.

​Food for thought:  if you find you always have something to say about everything, you spend more time talking than listening, you may be a bore.  You may be oversaturating your audience with relentless barrages of words that have all lost their meaning.  If no one can tell what's worth listening to anymore, you've become white noise to be tuned out. 

​Food for thought:  if you find people constantly interrupt you, it seems you can never finish a sentence, you may be a bore.  You may drone on about mundane details not pertinent to the convo and people are desperate to redirect convo.  Think about what you want to say.  Tailor it to be more interesting.  Cut to the chase and get the party started.  You may need to practice until you find the right balance to earn your audience's attention.  If you want people to listen, make sure it's interesting.  Everyone's time is valuable, so jump in, get to it and be aware of social cues that will help guide you to what's interesting and what is not.