Nothing can make our life, or the lives of other people, more beautiful than perpetual kindness.
— Leo Tolstoy
I suspect she’s dead by now. I haven’t seen her in nearly a year.
Sharon was in her forties. She’d battled cancer three or four times. But I can never remember a time when there wasn’t a smile on her face. She would spot me getting out of the car in the lot and would always have the dry cleaning ready by the time I hit the counter. We’d spend a few minutes talking about the day. I liked it. She knew my name.
Seva is from Nepal. He was in the military, a helicopter pilot. Three or four times a day, he would fly up into the Kumbu with medical supplies and rescue equipment. When the Maoist insurgents continued to threaten his family and take his money, he fled to the U.S. and sought asylum. His dream is to have his own limousine service. As we rode through the streets of San Jose, he told us proudly that the taxi he drove belonged to him.
“Your make-up looks beautiful,” Ann said to our waitress.
Angela’s eyes lit up. She smiled brightly. “It’s my nineteenth anniversary. My husband and I are going out to celebrate later.”
Angela had been a corporate executive, a six-figure earner, but now had an autistic child at home who needed her. Angela’s sister was finishing her Ph.D. at Oxford. And even though she hadn’t yet gone to visit her, Angela was proud of her sister. The dissertation would be on autism, she told us, as she cleared our breakfast dishes from the table.
I know these stories because, in these rare moments, I stopped long enough to connect: to pay attention, to ask, to listen, to share.
I’m not terribly good at this. I’ve never made the effort to know the woman who delivers my New York Times every Sunday morning regardless of the weather. I don’t know anything about the homeless man in the BART tunnel who gave me directions to my hotel when I was so weary from travel. I didn’t take the time. And I don’t know the names of the ladies who clean my office every other week. I’ve never even asked.
Not only that, there have been times that I’ve been unbearably impatient with operators, clerks and attendants who were just trying to do their jobs, just trying to get through their days, just like me.
What I do know is this: When I connect – when I take the time to stop and really connect – it matters.
The great 14th century mystic Meister Eckhart said: we are each drops in the ocean of the Divine; one and inseparable from the whole.
“We believe we’re all so different. But we’re not. We cover ourselves in customs and costumes of aspiration, struggle and victory, sacrifice and loss – and soon forget who we really are,” Oprah writes. (Yes real men read “O.”)
Who we really are is one. Each of us with hopes and dreams and stories and struggles and joys and sorrows. Each of us seeking recognition and affirmation and encouragement. And love.
“I want to makes sure I never lose sight of the truth of my existence,” writes Oprah. “I am a ripple in the ocean of God, and I want to be able to see my reflection in the face of everyone I meet, to understand that even people I will never know are reflections of my undisguised self.”
We like to think we’ve got it goin’ on. We like to think we’re self-sufficient. We like to think we can do it on our own. We like to think we’re separate and distinct.
The truth is: we’re all one; we’re all connected.
The truth is: we need each other.
There is such power is presence.
When we stop, even for a moment, and listen, we discover the most amazing stories of devastation and redemption; trial and perseverance; sorrow and celebration. When we stop, even for a moment and listen, we discover that our presence, our attention, our care, can change a day, lift a heart, and make a difference.
And ultimately we discover this: that the path we’re on is really just one path.
To be truly present to each person who enters our lives, in every interaction, in each and every moment: That’s a Journey.
Something I’ve learned in the last few years, too… we all want to be accepted, to fit in, to feel important.