Relationship: The skill of Active Listening

Words are POWERFUL! It can create beautiful relationships and can also be damaging. I love words because a sentence can have two totally different meaning. With that being said, I believe in order to understand words properly, you must have the skills of active listening. Actively listening has helped me in a lot of situations that were difficult including my current recovery from my accident two years ago. There have been a lot of misunderstandings amongst people because both parties weren't listening. I believe in democracy where everyone listens and share, their point of view. Active Listening is so cruel in today's world where we lack total transparency, either in fear of being wrongfully judged or misunderstood. How many can actually say that I have an active listening skill?