The Conversation

During my afternoon break today, three of my coworkers were standing in the kitchen, situated next to my office, so as the day was slow today I decided to join the conversation. I spent the first five minutes listening and nodding to whatever my coworkers were talking about. One of my coworkers is an Italian man and he shared his secret of making the eggplant lasagna that he brought to work last Thursday.  I learned there are different types of eggplants, there are the seedless and there are the ones with the mouthful of seeds, none of the fact was taught in my biology class back then in high school.  One of the female coworkers talked about the bake goods that she is known to make for our office.  Within the five minutes I learned so much about food and random facts that sometimes sitting with a book for one hour would not give me.  I am not saying we should all forgo the books as they have proven themselves to be the source of knowledge for centuries, but sometimes the human interaction gets us closer and faster to the knowledge we need than trying to find the fact by ourselves in books. 

One of the benefits of talking to other people is we will always learn something new. Whether it is about cars, the next big gadgets, the current governor of California, what supermodel Heidi Klum wore during the Halloween party last Saturday, the fact will come handy someday in the future, whether it is to impress someone or for functional use.  And best of all we become a smarter person as we accumulate more facts; in fact to think clearly we need to gather facts and generalize them.  Second, talking to other people make us think.  I was at a friend’s birthday party last Sunday and I ran into a guest who is a friend of a friend. We chatted about high school and college and then she asked me, “If money is not the problem, what would I rather do with my life?” I had to pause a bit before answering because to be completely honest, I had no clue.  I felt like I was in the hot seat in a game show and a few second later I heard myself saying I wanted to do some sort of charity work abroad.  Though the question is simple, I had to think on my feet.  Every time I talk to someone, I find myself to think and to have a better understanding of a topic and of who I am as a person, I might make a fool out of myself while talking to other people but being aware of our flaws is a way to know who we are.

The point is every time we interact with someone, we will always learn something, whether it is about some random topic or ourselves.  We become a new being who is a better person than before.  So we have to always be open to people and keep in mind we are no better than anyone and no one is better than us. Sure our lives and age might be different but we can always learn something new with every person crossing our path.