There has always been something about raw, human emotion that I’ve found quite interesting.

A girl laughing uncontrollably, a father comforting his children, a young adult practicing for an interview, getting anxious.

There is something intriguing about it all.

Maybe it’s because it is something so innate to humans,

Something we just can’t control.

That it becomes beautiful.

It becomes mesmerizing.

For this reason, I love little connections with strangers.

A friend and I were recently walking down the street,

When a man approached us from afar, saying “hello.”

I smiled in return and lifted my hand in a comforting wave.

My friend, on the other hand, became quite defensive, looking the other direction and assuming the worst.

“I never talk to strangers,” she said.

Coming from an adult, this was interesting to me.

How could you live your entire life never talking to strangers?

This man seemed harmless.

He sought that missing form of human interaction in his life.

I understand that not every “stranger” is going to be only looking to talk,

But I think it’s important that we give them the benefit of the doubt.

Truly, you never know who you could meet or the stories they could tell.

Simply ask, “How is your day?”

Most of the time, I’ll leave in a much better mood than before.

Everyone is going through something.

Try to find that common ground.

Try to be there.

Some people literally have no one.

Acting like you care for two minutes out of your 24-hour day could make their entire week.

We never know what’s going on in other people’s lives.

But at the end of the day,

We’re all feeling those same raw, human emotions.

At the end of it all,

We are all the same.