Taking Over The World One Person At A Time

A week ago, I was working out at the gym, when I looked around and realized I’ve seen a lot of these people in the last year that I’ve been going to this gym. I never made any effort to get to know any of them. Granted, at the gym, everyone kind of keeps from making eye contact, myself especially because I know I’m not looking particularly human when I’m straining to get that last rep. Yeah, please don’t look at me while I’m working out. However, there are the people that work the front desk, that I say “hi” and “bye” to twice a week or even the people that make my sandwiches at QFC that I haven’t made an effort to throw a truly polite word at.

When I was younger, I thought I would achieve happiness by saving the world. Now that I’m older, I still hold onto a bit of that belief but I believe that the world starts with your immediate surrounding. I looked at my family after being resentful and bitter toward them for so long. I’m not even sure why I was ever bitter, nor do I care to figure out why anymore, I simply love them. I tried to help my family by providing emotional support, some days I might feel like I haven’t done the best job, but I know I’ve tried. Now, I’m hoping to expand that circle to people that I come across in my daily life.

That guy at QFC that sometimes look very angry at making my sandwich because he’s so swamped, I’m willing to bet if I made the effort to get to know his name and say “hi” and tell him I’m in no hurry and ask him how his day is going, that he will probably be a little happier for that moment. While I understand that could be fleeting happiness for him, and some people could just get annoyed, I think the overall end result would be a positive thing.

A few years back, my buddy, Brian told me he used to work for a suicide hotline, and he worked the worst shift of midnight to 6 a.m. People are usually most depressed during that time. He told me of an incident where this guy called him and told him that he didn’t call to have him talk him out of committing suicide, nor does he want any sort of help or advice from him. The guy simply wanted to let someone know that he doesn’t have any friends or family, but he wanted someone to know that he is going to kill himself. That was it, the guy hung up soon after. A couple days later, Brian read about the guy’s suicide in the papers.

People want to be acknowledged in their existence.

So…what I wanted to do is, just to try for 30 consecutive days to talk to someone new everyday. I have to talk to them to the point where I’m actually comfortable with asking for their name, whether I actually remember that part or not isn’t that important, the important part is that I’ve chatted with this person long enough to get to that point (now I don’t mean to do this in a creepy, pounce on strangers and ask for their names sort of way). I plan to write about every person that I’ve met and about the things I’ve learned about them. This has to be done from memory so that I would honestly pay attention to these people.

So, it has been a week now and I haven’t started yet. Why is that? Try thinking about talking to a stranger every single day…the idea is pretty daunting. I’m just mentally preparing myself at the moment.