Talking To Strangers

Retirement For Newbies is a Substacker who posts about different aspects of retirement. Today their post was called Don’t Let your World Shrink. One of the things in the post says, “Make a point of speaking to someone outside your usual circle. It doesn’t need to be deep”. My wife and I do this constantly, we always have. As teachers, we used to talk all day long to the students. My wife was one of the few teachers I ever knew who never had a bad parent teacher conference, Ever. Most of the time, the parents would be there over their allotted time, discussing everything about their children and their lives. My wife had the ability to listen and speak to them about what was important to them and they knew she cared just as much about their child as they did. It also helps that she enjoys talking about just about anything! And I have been told that I can talk to anyone from any walk of life about anything also. It makes for fun times.

Yesterday, we were in Disney’s Hollywood Studios and as we were walking on to Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, there was a couple behind us that was walking in and the wife was laughing so loud and in such a way , that you couldn’t smile or laugh along. When they caught up to us, he was shaking his head and she was laughing at him for something he had done coming into the queue. When we stopped walking she shared with us what was funny (she had snapped a picture of the way he was walking). We also found out that their daughters were in front of us and they were kind of trying to ignore their parents.

As we wound our way though the line toward the front of the ride, we got to talking. they were from New York, they were down, before the girls were going back to school next week and enjoying a fun family vacation. We talked about everything from his shirt, which said “My wife is y Favorite Disney Villain” (which she got him), to the Eagles, Yankees and Phillies, with some school and evening ideas thrown in. It was fun talking with them and when we got the front of the ride, we said our good-byes and told them to enjoy their trip. As we got further in to the ride, right before you enter the Falcon, we all noticed that the seating’s were in groups of 6, right away we asked the Cast member if we could ride together and they switched the groupings, so we could. It was a ball! They had never ridden the ride before, and the daughters, yelled at each other about their flying skills, as we and their parents laughed at them through most of the flight. When we got off, we talked a few more minutes, thanked them for sharing their ride with us and then went on our way.

This morning I had a similar experience, when I was out on my bike. As I said, I ride through town and wave to the different people who I cross paths with. Today as I came through and intersection, one of our towns workers (whom I always wave hello to) was sitting in the middle of the sidewalk in her work cart. She said hello, and asked how I was doing, so I stopped and we talked. It was wonderful to finally get to know her name and find out a little about her. She actually worked at Disney before she worked for our town. She was a horticulturist, which is what she is doing now for Winter Garden. It was short, but very pleasant conversation.

Both yesterday and today, the conversations and the smiles that went along with them, reminded me one of the happiness’s of Living the Life, is chatting with people you don’t know and may never see again, or someone you may say hello to every morning.

So, if you are Living the Life or are working towards it and enjoy talking to strangers…

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