To be honest, when I took this challenge upon myself, I wasn't expecting much change or thought. After all, I'm a rather social person and love starting conversations. I thought to myself that this can't be too bad.
I couldn't have been further from the truth.
Finding a new person at school whom I had not ever talked to before was, well, challenging. But talking to each person taught me that I really needed to change the way I interacted and judged people. For the longest time, I only talked to people with the same interests and attitudes as me. I would go to school, talk to my friends, do what I needed to do and go home. But until last week, I never really noticed the people who never talked. I never paid attention to the kid that sat in the back, quiet and alone. I never gave a second glance to the girl who had moved from another state and had no friends. But this week, that changed. This week, I talked to those kids. And I can tell you, the results were surprising to me.
I had many different conversations this week, but the one that stuck out the most happened on Tuesday with a quiet, unassuming kid that sat in the back of my first period class.
That day, I put my stuff down at my seat, walked to the back of the class and sat next to him. I saw his doing the same chemistry homework I had, so I asked him about it. With that, I started a conversation, but he surprised me by revealing he would be leaving class in a few days to transfer to another one. That got me thinking... Before taking on this challenge, I hadn't even noticed this kid. He was such a nice person and had similiar interests as me. We both complained about the same things and had laughed at the same jokes, but because we didn't play the same sports or have the same friends, I had completely disregarded him. If I hadn't talked to him, he would have left my class, and I wouldn't have even noticed. Did I really want to be like that? He was a great person to talk to. From that moment on, I realized that no matter how different someone was from me, there was still no reason I couldn't be nice and social with him or her.
There are probably hundreds of other kids in your classes alone that are just like him, yet you completely ignore them because they aren't like you.
From that week, I learned a unique lesson from each and every conversation that I had with a different person. I learned to accept different cultures because of the girl who was scared of the dirty looks people gave her headscarf, and I learned to be patient from a boy who was stressed to the point of self-harm because he was crushed with so much school work. But all the lessons that I learned from my conversations fell under one big theme. Don't judge someone by what they wear or how they look. Instead, look at their character and the way that they act.
And now I challenge you: have a conversation with a stranger for at least two minutes a day. You'll be surprised by who you discover.
