To speak or to listen

I have been wondering a lot recently whether it is better to speak or to listen. I think in theory they should not be mutually exclusive, but in practice they almost always are. After having spent most of my life being one who speaks, last year people who I respect told me in no uncertain terms that I should listen more, and so I stopped speaking, trying to remain as open to listening as I possibly could. Listening is difficult, and perhaps I simply need to try harder, but it is a rabbit hole to go down, a void, a state in which one can perpetually chase the idea that they should be doing more, absorbing more of the world’s hardships by listening to the cacophany of voices that you hear once you stop speaking yourself. The din rapidly approaches a state of being unbearable, and now I seek to quiet it again - the only real choices seem to be to runaway, or to drown it out with my own voice once more.