There’s a story inside each one of us. Let it breathe.
I recently returned from an international flight that had me feeling like a withered raisin. You know the feeling? Altitude’s tortured your skin, confused your head, and your knees ache. You’ve been eating ravenously, yet you can’t tell if you are still hungry. The last thing you want to do is be chipper to your possibly serendipitous seatmate.
The last leg of my journey was a quick hop from Dallas to Austin. I easily could have closed the eyelids, stared mindlessly out the window, or lost myself within a book.
Instead, I decided to talk with the person next to me. Why is this now the exception rather than the norm? I believe we are getting lazy with real face-to-face conversations because of the always-on, always-instant nature of our ‘supposedly’ ultra-connected lives. Instead of truly getting to know someone in a personal setting (coffee house, airplane), we ‘settle’ for the superficial of a digital social world (Facebook).
I quickly noticed my seatmate’s South African accent. It was Henrik’s first visit to Austin. He was visiting for a horse dental convention. Who knew this was even an event? Later in the year, Henrik planned on opening his own practice in South Africa.
We talked sports, schools, life in Texas, life in South Africa. If the plane kept flying south to Brazil, we would have probably spoken the duration of the flight. During free time, Henrik wanted to pick up a new cowboy hat, boots, and visit a rodeo in San Angelo, a short 3 hour drive from Austin.
As wheels touched ground, my friend, Henrik, gave me a rand, South Africa’s currency. Cool. More countries need to place fearsome animals like the rhino on their currency. 10 rand, by the way, is currently worth a little over a dollar, so I wasn’t impacting his financial means while in Austin.
I thought momentarily about throwing the rand bill into the garbage, but I froze. No, through that rand I’ll always remember the delightful conversation that I had with my friend from South Africa.
The takeaway: People love telling their story, and everyone has something to share that will cause you to sit up and take notice. Shut the phone, close the book, open your eyes and forcibly move out of your comfort zone to make a connection even when you are tired, bored, or disinterested. You’ll be glad you did, and you’ll have the memory to prove it.
(Note: I ran into Henrik at the baggage claim and he proceeded to show me some of the dental tools for his work on horses. Horses must have molars the size of mountains.)
Until next time,
Dan Naden
