While wearing the earplugs for 8 hours, the thing I found most difficult was trying to have a conversation with people. I would like to think I am pretty good at lipreading, but it was a little harder being put into an actual scenario where part of your hearing is blocked off. It was interesting to see people getting a little annoyed with me. Of course, I understand their frustration in having to repeat their selves multiple times. Or if I did not reply right away or at all, that brought others some frustration. This can be frustrating for both parties. However, this experience taught me a lesson in patience. Many people are not very understanding to those who are needing accommodations and I feel this gave me an inside look at the experience that those who are hard of hearing go through on an everyday basis.
Going into the experience, I figured changes in my hearing would cause me a lot of issues and frustrate me more than the people around me. Nevertheless, the earplugs gave me a lot of time to reflect and I enjoyed that about this assignment. It made me have an understanding of those who are different than me. It also allowed me to feel the pros and cons of the situation. Pro, I was able to understand my thoughts better. Con, it was more difficult to interreact with others. Another benefit of wearing the earplugs was that I was able to be more productive and it made doing my homework a lot easier. This was because I did not have as many outside distractions (like people talking) as I usually do. All in all, I feel the positives of this outweighed any of the negatives and it was an overall positive and eye-opening experience for me.
As stated before, I learned how important patience can be from this experience. I, myself get very frustrated with people in public when they don’t move out of my way or don’t listen to my question. I never really stop to perhaps put myself in the other person’s shoes and may question if they have a disability, are hard of hearing, or are deaf. Instead, I lose my patience and get annoyed immediately. This experience made me realize that being patient with those around you is a lesson that is so beneficial to both you and society. This can show someone you do care even if it seems like you do not. Seeing others get frustrated with me for not understanding them or having them repeat themselves also taught me something about patience. People get annoyed and impatient and give up after one try of trying to understand someone, and that to me was very sad I just wanted them to explain until I got it, and people did not understand that. This experience taught me lessons I can bring back into other aspects of life as well. On top of that, my grandparents have some hearing issues, because they are getting old. Specifically, my grandma and grandpa both have to wear hearing aids. There have been times when the family is sitting around talking and the way my grandpa handles it is, that he gets angry that he cannot always participate in the conversation because he cannot hear very well. Whereas my grandma just eliminates herself from the conversation because she does not want to be a bother because she understands the frustration others around her run into. With all this being said, I plan on being even more patient with my grandparents and taking time to try and help and meet their needs because I know the frustration and have a concept of what they are going through every day. I do not want them to feel misunderstood or like a bother when I am talking to them.
I also found myself surprised along the way by this experience. What shocked me about this experience was the number of times people tried to talk to me and I did reply right away. The other person would just immediately give up or get frustrated with me. I think a lot of people in today’s society need a lesson on patience, and before that, I was 100% one of those people. Those with who I spent a lot of time with who I did not tell about the experience would immediately take it to heart that I was not trying or that I did not care, and would automatically get frustrated at me for it. Instead of trying a different way to communicate with me, they would give up and drop the conversation or go on to talk to a different person. This to me was very saddening because it seemed like I was not important enough to talk to if they did not get an answer from me right away. Moreover, another thing that astonished me was the number of people who did not care to listen to the explanation of why I was not answering them as I usually do. When I took the earplugs out and went to explain why I was not replying, the other person just went right back to talking about what they wanted to tell me before. This was very disappointing and again made me feel as if people did not care to talk to me.
Furthermore, as for how I was treated in public, for the most part, people were very nice and treated me as they normally would if I could hear them. A lot more people had compassion and were very patient with me. This surprised me. However, something I noticed, as I previously stated, was seeing a few people getting visibly frustrated or annoyed with me when I did not answer them in the manner, they expected me to. Other than the few occasions where someone was rude to me for not replying to them, everyone else seemed to not notice or did not act in a different way towards me. My friends mostly understood, but this still made me feel a little left out of the conversation because I was not able to interreact in the same manner as I usually do
In summation, I think this was a very positive experience for me despite the negative aspects of it and the people who did not care enough to adapt. I feel this experience taught me a lot about patience and taught me to take into consideration how other people who may have trouble hearing feel. It is not fair to assume someone has the exact same abilities that you do. I feel this is an experience that others should try and do even if they are not interested in deaf culture. It is important to take a step in other people's shoes because you will never know what someone else experiences on a day-to-day basis. It is important to be aware of others' experiences and abilities and adjust accordingly. This experience can teach me a lot about compassion and respect for other people who are different from you.