Most of the ah-ha moments in my life are derived from conversations I have with people... sometimes strangers, most times people with whom I already have some established connection...
I can remember years ago when I was going to UC there was a homeless dude who always sat out front of the coffee shop I frequented in Clifton. I should say that it was pretty tough to make friends at UC, the race riots were still fresh in everyone's mind and the entire campus seemed to have silently segregated itself into ethnic sub-groups- there were the Latinos, the Asians, the African Americans and so on. Strangely enough, there was no pasty-red head group. I have always made friends relatively easily, so striking up conversation after conversation with people on campus only to be ignored or rejected got old after the first couple of days...So, I spent my long breaks in coffee shops getting to know locals as opposed to anyone on campus. So the homeless guy- he hung out on the same street, generally in front of the same few shops, everyday. He knew everybody that passed by, and they all knew him. He would sweep the sidewalks out in front of the shops and in return the merchants would pay him with a coffee or a sandwich.
The guy was wise beyond my years. Like Mr. Wendell from the Arrested Development song. As we stood there on those crisp autumn afternoons, smoking cigarettes and chatting about the intricacies of life, I realized I was getting far more of an 'education' from that man than any university class was going to get me. So I quit going to class. Instead, I walked to the coffee shop everyday, outlined my textbooks and savored the wisdom nuggets that guy outside the coffee shop would exhale in between drags of the smoke I was always happy to give him. At the end of the school year I left that school, there seemed to me to be little reason to pay to go to a school where your 3.89 gpa came from coffee shop talks and textbook outlining while skipping class. I will always remember that guy though, my own Mr. Wendell.
Since Mr. Wendell there have been countless talks. Countless interactions, countless unexpected nuggets of wisdom, sometimes from the most unsuspecting places. The measure of my human experience has come from these interactions. I am blessed to have met and mingled with so many wisdom filled souls. These interactions can never be forced, they must happen organically and always when you least expect it. In conversation last weekend with one such wisdom filled soul I was told "I hope one day you learn to speak to yourself the way that you speak to others" and I was taken aback. I had never really considered the fact that I do anything but speak to others the way I want to be spoken to. And then it dawned on me, the way in which I want to be spoken to so often does not match up with the way in which I speak to myself. And I wondered, how many of us do that? How many of us subscribe to those variations of the golden rule- speaking to others, treating others, the way we want to be treated and spoken to, only to not follow through when it comes to how we treat and speak to ourselves?
Many people have been gracious enough to pay me the complement of being a good listener, or a sound advice giver... a high complement indeed. But when I stop for a moment and really think about it- I am a bit of an impostor in this arena if I cannot say the same things to myself. If I cannot follow my own advice. The conversation that spawned this whole diatribe in my brain started out as a discussion about learning what it is to 'be the better man'. We talked about how in life, sometimes our lessons are for higher purpose, and the lesson of 'being the better man' is indeed one of those lessons. The better man embraces situations which would other wise be avoided by a 'lesser man', he deals with things head on and runs from nothing, all the while conducting himself with grace and poise. The better man must not only talk the talk, but follow it with an impressive walk. There is no swagger in the better man's walk, it takes perfect posture, broad shoulders and humility to walk this walk. It wasn't until we ended the discussion and he posed the idea that I should learn to speak to myself in the same way I speak to others that I realized- I cannot be the better man until I can walk that walk in my own life. So, I raise my glass to all of you that not only talk the talk of wisdom, but walk the walk of the better man- thanks for being such bright, shining lights of example in the world.
