|| To Hear for Life, Listen with Care ||

This year World Health Organization has made the motto "To hear for life, listen with care" to improve hearing health in the world. Pandemic has taught us how mental and physical health is important for us. WHO in World Hearing Report, predicted that around the world, 1.1 billion youngsters will have hearing loss by 2030. In this digital technology revolution and online studies, youngsters are spending more time listening to music they have also become selfie specialists. So it is very important to spread the message throughout the world that our most important organ "Ear" that we use for hearing and for better communication we need to take care of it. The world revolves around with communication more of verbal communication if that will get affected then what will be the situation? Till today birds and animals are not using technology to hear and perceive us, so if we humans will not take care then other creatures in this world will rule. Just think about it??? We need to hear and listen to our body, mind, and soul.

I read in stories that Lord Rama was trapped by his enemies and though he was king he had to spend 14 years in the forest, which was one of the big tragedies. Lord Krishna had to leave his home to fight against his enemies his uncle Kansa. Lord Rama used to follow his ethics and principles and had to suffer a lot and Lord Krishna never had to suffer as he knew how to overcome the challenges in life. Infact through the challenges, he used to create a new way for everyone's life. We all have to go through the process. From Lord Rama's learning to Lord Krishna's inspiration, one animal distracted Lord Rama (or he was mesmerized)  but Putna who came to kill Lord Krishna could not do anything rather Lord Krishna did teach her lesson. Lord Rama saw his brother lying unconscious, he got shattered but Lord Krishna never hesitated young Abhimanyu to fight in the war against very efficient fighters. Lord Rama was king and Lord Krishna was king maker. Lord Rama was a soft-hearted personality and Lord Krishna was soft-hearted with a dynamic personality. Lord Rama fought for ethics and Lord Krishna for humanity.

It is said that everyone has to start that life journey like Lord Rama and time shows them the ultimate journey of Lord Krishna. Every human being on this earth needs to learn from the journey of Lord Rama and Lord Krishna. By birth, the journey of life starts from experiences learned from Lord Rama and needs to end with the learning experiences of Lord Krishna. The same is with hearing and listening. To understand and to hear life, we need to listen and take care of ourselves and the people around us. I feel its vicious cycle more closely you hear to your life, the more care life will take in listening to you. My life learnings have taught me to be a better human being by hearing the difficulty of hearing-impaired people and listening to them has made me take care of myself and those who are in need of my expertise to help them. So just understand the real meaning of "to hear for life, listen with care" it has so much depth.

Recently we organized a camp for corporate organization's employees. They had to undergo psychological evaluation of emotions and feelings and we saw that more than half of the employees burst out of their emotions, cried, and felt so relaxed, by sharing their feelings in front of their colleagues. They felt that there is someone who is ready to listen to them with care. We also narrated sitting posture syndrome to them. Our Physiotherapists and Occupational therapist help them to understand their body. We also taught them how to overcome their pain while working. All the employees were screened for their hearing and they were guided for their speech and voice too. Since employees are involved in too much communication, they do presentations in front of others hence good voice and speech with clarity are also equally important. They were also guided individually for their routine healthy diet. After the camp we received such a beautiful response from all the employees as they were taken care of, they were listening and others were listening to them and it created a wonderful relationship among employees as well as between employees and management and they were ready to listen to their family and were ready to take care of themselves, their family and their company.

The reason, why I narrated the whole experience of corporate camp is, in today's world doing a diagnosis of an individual for having any disease has become very important. We made them aware of the best facilities available which will keep them away from all the diseases. Working with hearing-impaired children has helped me to be aware of my hearing and listening skills towards others. These hearing impaired special kids teach us that to hear for life means to make their life exists in the hearing world. They have to listen through their hearing aids or cochlear implant so that they can survive in this hearing world. We organized a fitness fest event for hearing-impaired children as I believe they are the right people who know that to hear for life you need to listen with care. They are the one who really creates positive vibes to make this life sound more special.

I am the liaison for make listening safe from CGHH (Coalition of Global Hearing Health) which is associated with WHO. We have shortlisted the parameters for making listening safe. Today overall loud sounds of music and negative people who create havoc at the workplace and at leisure can affect hearing and hearing of positivity so we need to keep the overall volume down for music and also the volume of negativity, and distracted people, which will indirectly increase more volume of positivity. We need to use earplugs in a noisy environment to protect our hearing which also means we need to protect hearing from negative and people who create unnecessary noise to distract other people. We also need to limit our time spent in noisy activities, which means we also need to be away from people creating unnecessary noise and try to relax and spent more time with positive people. This will bring such a difference in your life that you will just love more and be happy always.

In recent years, people are dependent on smartphones, and they use a number of apps for different activities and monitoring life. However, what if we could monitor sound levels through an App?  Interestingly, WHO has initiated an app to monitor one’s hearing. But, how about we keep away from people creating unnecessary noise and disturbances in our life. I hope in near future we will have an app that will help us to know who is a positive person and ready to face any challenge and about a person who just knows how to create hurdles for others. If this becomes reality then the app will make our life easy and I feel that will be the time when only specially-abled people will be noticed because I believe they are the only people extremely positive towards their life. The last parameter suggests that we need to do a regular checkup of hearing which just proves my statement that was made earlier true. We need to regularly hear our mind, body, and soul and listen with care so that our life only becomes more meaningful.

On the special occasion of this world hearing day, I am celebrating a fitness fest with hearing-impaired children who know the real meaning of hearing and listening. They are the best people who believe in the importance of hearing. With them, I have started listening to my life and trying to listen with care about me and others around me. What about you all? Though I still feel we should not worry about a single thing rather believe in our potential that every little thing is going to be alright.