One more class until spring break. I just have to show up to this class; I don’t have to participate or even pay attention. I just need to get through the next two and a half hours and I will be home free.

Those were the thoughts going through my mind the morning of my last days of classes before spring break. Little did I know, during that two and a half hour class I would not only pay attention, but I was actively thinking about the theories we were talking about and applying them to my own life.

We spent the entire class talking about philosopher Martin Buber’s “I- It and I-Thou” theory. The basic idea of what we were talking about was how we can either have engaging dialogue with people and moments, or our interactions can be reducing things and people to an ‘it’ making the interaction one-sided.

I am unable to understand why exactly the conversation struck me so much, but it did. I couldn’t help but think back to all of the interactions I've had recently or moments that have stuck with me. People were arguing that some people are so awful that they could never experience a conversation where they are fully emerged and open-minded. I couldn’t disagree with that idea more. Think about your own lives. Think to the last time you had a real encounter with someone or something. It could have been a quick moment but it also could have been a long conversation. Now, think about what life would be like if we did not constantly reduce people to one thing but instead listened to them and learned about them free of any distraction.

Imagine what technology has done to us. We are all so consumed by our phones that even making eye contact is hard. How is it possible to have a completely engaging dialogue with someone when our phones are so important to us?

Sitting through this class had my mind working at a thousand miles an hour. I was thinking about all of the meaningful conversations I have had with people, the conversations I wasn’t fully participating in, the things going through other people’s minds when they talk to me. As I was leaving, I ended up thinking about how lucky I was to have moments that I can remember where I was having a conversation not thinking about the next thing to say. The times I was fully encountering who I was talking to and simply saying what felt right in that moment.

I hope that all people can experience and remember those moments because if you think hard enough about it, you will realize how few and fleeting they are.