Two Ears and One Mouth

Has your mouth ever gotten you in trouble? Mine has. Have you ever failed to listen when you should have? I have. Have you ever blown off advice and later wish you would've taken it? I have.
I was talking to some young ladies the other day who were talking about someone they know just running off at the mouth only later realizing they probably should've shut it. Then yesterday I was talking to a friend and we were talking about how we never get too old to listen and learn from others. She was saying that she still calls her sister for advice or her mother-in-law. For some reason, some people think at a certain age they have arrived and no longer need to listen to others or heed the advice of others. Then, last night, I was watching American Idol. There was a young man getting ready to go on stage and he was talking about how he was going to respect what the judges would say to him and listen to them. He must have assumed they were going to tell him what he wanted to hear, ummm didn't happen that way. The judges began to tell him what he needed to work on and that he wasn't there yet. He immediately became defensive and when they tried to offer advice he would just burst out singing over and over again. They tried to tell him they were trying to help him but he just left shouting expletives and declaring that they knew nothing.
How often are we like that? As long as people say what we want to hear, we listen. We tell friends to be honest with us but then when we are, sometimes they don't want to be our friend any more. We think when we turn 18 we know everything and off we go headstrong into a world ready to beat us up and knock us down.
I Corinthians 8:2 says that the man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. We so want to look good and feel important yet we so easily become arrogant with a know-it-all attitude. My parents always said "you have 2 ears and 1 mouth. You need to listen twice as much as you talk". That's advice I wish many times I had heeded. It's so much easier to learn from what others try to tell us or learn from others mistakes without always learning from the school of hard knocks. My Dad's favorite statement has always been, "hard-headed people have a hard time". Father knows best.