Listening In The Epic Poem 'The Odyssey'

Your Key to Success: Listening Whether you realize it or not, listening is a big part of your everyday life. Listening is used to hear instructions, descriptions, and to communicate with others. According to the chart below, 70 percent of a person’s life is communicating, and 45 percent of the communication is done by listening. This shows how important listening is to communicate with others. Listening is looking at the person who is talking, understanding the information they are telling you, and not having any distractions. In the epic poem The Odyssey, Odysseus tells his men to not touch the wind bags right before they get home and while he is taking a nap they opened them and send them very far away. His men were distracted by being almost home and wanted to get there faster. However, listening is very often mistaken. Listening is commonly mistaken as being the same as hearing. Dahlia Ambrose, a writer with many articles, states “Hearing is an action in which a sound is perceived by the ear. Very little or no effort is required. Listening is an action in which you choose to actively concentrate on what you hear” (Ambrose, “The Difference Between Listening and Hearing”). When you hear something, it does not mean that you automatically understand it. When listening, you need an active mind to process the information that …show more content…
Without listening, it is hard to accomplish anything. In an article for Weekly Reader Magazine, longtime author Marilyn Cram Donahue gives examples of how to be a better listener. “Maintain eye contact. This may be hard, but looking at the ceiling shows the other person that you are not fully concentrated. Avoid communication potholes. This means concentrating on the important stuff, and not getting side tracked by non-essentials” (Donahue, “How Active is Your Listening?”). This quote shows the importance of concentrating on the speaker so you understand