An Interesting Concept

One interesting concept that stood out to me in our reading of Chapter Six was an area on Selecting and Organizing Material-About how louder, out of the ordinary communication styles have an effect on the way people listen. Our text gave an example of an Asian American student who said that Caucasians "often ignore what she says because speaks softly and unassertively" (Wood, pg.149). I can see where the concept of mindfulness would work well for situations like these, because if the first step of listening involves being mindful, then a person should be able to look past soft spoken and unassertive mannerisms. I come from a family where everyone competes to be heard, and in order for others to listen we tend to speak loud or talk over one another. My girlfriend comes from a family of soft-spoken speakers such as the example in our book, and this has caused some issues before during family functions. I think that I should be more mindful of the possibility that I am not listening as effectively to others who don't have a similar communication style as myself. One thing the text doesn't mention is an example of how it can also go the other way around too because sometimes people who are more soft-spoken seem to be annoyed and agitated by speakers with louder mannerisms. My girlfriend has accused me before of talking too loud in an angry tone of voice when I was actually just trying to make an opinion about something. When this happens it makes me feel as though she is not listening to my words because she is annoyed, so I think that mindfulness can help everyone in that aspect.