Selective Listening

To give you an example of selective listening, let me share with you a small story I heard about
a medical doctor who was invited as a guest speaker to address a group of alcoholics.
He wanted to make a demonstration that would be powerful enough to make people
realize that alcohol was injurious to their health. He had two containers, one with pure
distilled water and one with pure alcohol. He put an earthworm into the distilled water and
it swam beautifully and came up to the top. He put another earthworm into the alcohol
and it disintegrated in front of everyone's eyes. He wanted to prove that this was what
alcohol did to the insides of our body. He asked the group what the moral of the story
was and one person from behind said, "If you drink alcohol you won't have worms in yourstomach." Was that the message? Of course not. That was selective listening--"we hear what we want to hear and not what is being said."

Many of our blessings are hidden treasures--count your blessings and not your troubles.