Bad Listening Habits

The next subject of learning to listen is a difficult one for me. Don't get me wrong, I will listen, but I tend to voice my opinion about the situation and about how one should go about handling it. I never really thought there would be so much in the concept of listening, but there is. So many different things that should be practiced each time one attempts to listen. I had always been under the assumption that listening meant hearing and understanding what the person was telling you. It is very complicated! It was interesting to learn that we spend most of our time listening than we do anything else. WOW! That was interesting, but it makes sense. How else does one learn if we are always talking. It basically becomes an issue of us simply just "being" and not making our presence known. In that sense why does it sometimes feel that there is an awkward silence that seems to be meant to voice some input? That I do not understand. Possibly it could just be the person I am having a conversation with, or maybe I just assumed that as my role. The complexity of listening is something that no one person considers which in turn can cause more communication problems. I never really thought that I had a listening problem, but according to what I have read I am not a very good one or in a better sense I could be a much better one. I have come to the conclusion that I am most definately an action- oriented listener! I have found myself numerous times thinking to myself, " get to the point already", or " and the point of the story is?" I just always feel that some individuals tend to add much more details and events that do not even pertain to the point or discussion they are trying to make. It tends to sound so much like jibberish. Those that do that tend to spend fifteen minutes or more just to make one point just by adding extra details that did not even relate to the issue or even impact it such as including the color of cars, what a person was wearing at the time, I just never understood it. I suppose I have concluded this is yet another thing I need to work on in time.