Anybody can teach you something

Every person in the world has some kind of knowledge. Doesn’t matter their culture, profession or social status, they can teach you something. Still, we forget this and sometimes we think too much of ourselves or those with nice titles and reputation. We put in a pedestal the ones that have money and fame, instead of paying attention to those in our daily lives. In my case it was a stranger.

Recently I have been introduced to some life lessons and philosophies, such as: I shouldn’t value material things too much, if they break or get ruin they are replaceable. Or even more interesting, reciprocity is not the way to go, instead we should just pay it forward, and do favors and positive things for people for no reason but just to help.

Yesterday I was reminded of two things, one that everybody can teach you something and two.

It was a nice Friday night on spring, I was in at Mc Donald’s looking for a quick meal before going out. The time was around 9 pm. I order my burger and fries, and head to look for some place to sit down and eat. I couldn’t find no tables, so I seated on bar for people that come alone to eat. Near me, to my right, was a guy in his late forties eating in a table alone. He looked like a homeless guy or drunk having a meal. He had jeans, wear down baseball cap, and a jacket made of jean fabric. His gray beard, looked like it was a week old.

While I was eating, this guy starting screaming “halooo, halooo”. He was got the attention of the other customers around, I tried not to pay attention to him and just concentrated in my thoughts, burgers and fries. Then after one of the Mc Donald’s employees clean his table, he stand up. At this point I was thinking: “OK here he comes, will se what he wants”. He started to speak to me in Swedish, I couldn’t understand much and just looked and him puzzled. One could smell that he has been drinking, but is was not that strong and it wasn’t a annoying, it was like it was part of him. He noticed that I didn’t understand and asked me if I can speak Swedish, I told him (in Swedish) that I couldn’t. He then asks, with a serious face “why is everybody on a hurry, they are always on a hurry”.At this point I new the “smart ass philosophical answer” and that is what i told him: “because everybody forgets to live their life” I told him. Then he started to smile like saying “we are in the same page”. So, to reassure my statement I continued: “it’s all about the time, we think we own it, we continuously say we don’t have time for this and that”. At that point he agreed with me, and showed me that he didn’t have a wrist watch and even if he wanted to look at the time he couldn’t. And told me to take it easy, and don’t be in a hurry.

The funny thing is that “talk is cheap” and mostly like I was eating on a hurry and have been on a hurry all day. However that night I got a reminder to enjoy the present.

So, there was a guy that I didn’t want to talk to and many of us don’t care about, he understood life today in the modern world. We are always on hurry looking ahead at deadline and stressing out on those that we can’t meet. We are always on a rush trying to catch a train or compiling how X activity was a waste of time. We failed to enjoy what we have and then burden ourselves in our late years, because we didn’t stop and smell not just the flowers but everything and everybody. Although here in Sweden people take it easy compared to USA (where live to work instead of work to live), still people are in a rush.

There you have it, some insight from a unexpected source. We judge others for what we see on that moment and for get that they are complex beings like ourselves. We think because they ask questions, that we consider stupid, they are stupid. Or if they are just a simple employee or cleaner they don’t know nothing about business. We even ignore our customers when generally they know best. Everybody can teach us, the challenge is how to put aside all the noise and find the signal. In my case, I had to put aside the fact that after our short chat about life he wanted a favor, to be more specific 5 Swedish Crowns for the metro.