Does anybody else feel like the older you get, the easier it is for most conversations with people to follow some sort of unwritten script? Like, if I mindlessly start talking to someone, I’m sure work will come up. Maybe family. Maybe something else pretty trivial.
Some of my favorite conversations in life are the weirdest ones. Ranking all our senses in order of best to worst. Guessing how other people got their coolest scars. Deciding the best culinary approach to preparing and serving each Pokémon. (Sorry, that was a real one.) Then there are those raw talks where someone reveals things they’re actually having a tough time with and that makes you want to root really hard for that person.
I guess what I’m trying to do is to not enter conversations so mindlessly. To not try and recreate conversations from the past, but to enter every interaction with a playful curiosity, whoever I might be talking to. To not learn about people’s job descriptions, but instead the things that make them excited to start every day. To be open to discovering the passionate, the honest, and the weird.