Person 1: “How are you?
Person 2: “Busy, You?”
Person 1: “Yeah same, there’s always so much to do”
Person 2: “You’re not wrong”
End scene.
This is a ‘conversation’ that most of us have multiple times per day. There is no real intention or connection, just an easy, surface level exchange, failing to result in anything worthwhile.
This may technically count as ‘interaction’ but exchanges such as these have become the norm and unfortunately so. Bypassing our intrinsic psychological needs for belonging and connection.
” When people talk, listen completely.
Don’t be thinking about what you’re going to say. Most people never listen.
Nor do they observe. You should be able to go into a room and when you come out,
know everything that you saw there and not only that.
If that room gave you any feeling you should know exactly what it was that gave you that feeling.
Try that for practice.”
———-
// Ernest Hemingway
This quote sums these conversations up perfectly. I believe that a big reason that we ‘miss things’ and forget what people say is that we are so focused on the future and what might happen next, that we leave ourselves on auto-pilot. Barely existing as the promise of what’s to come, somehow outweighs the actuality of what is.
We must not be so quick to abandon what we have, for what we think we may have. We must create an overlap in our moments to listen and love and feel all of the wonderful things around and inside of us.
My challenge to you is to take the time out of your day to have a real conversation with someone, to connect and to listen. Or, stop for a moment and observe everything that is around you. The people, the things the sounds, the smells.
Experience your conversations and environments and embrace all that is in the moment.
Have a wonderful day.
Lachie
