Snap! Snap!

As we go about our daily lives, we talk, walk, sleep and interact with others. We are constantly making decisions about what we are doing, what we want to do, places we want to go and people we want to meet. After a while, the humdrum of everyday life really gets to you, sometimes to the point where you switch into a sort of "auto-pilot"; coasting through your day with glazed eyes and having monotonous dialogs with colleagues and befuddled peers.

Several days ago I was "auto-pilot-ing" my way through an afternoon of tree planting when something made me snap out of my stupor (ok well not actually a stupor, I'm exaggerating... sort of). Someone had actually called me by my name!

Ok now, this makes me sound like a huge loser ("Haha no one ever uses your name ahahaha.") but it's not really as simple as someone saying my name. It was more the way that she kind of enunciated and said it meaningfully after asking "Where do you want to go now,".

Perhaps this has never occurred to you but it really made me think about how little we use each other's names. Often with friends and acquaintances we are tempted to say "Yo, what's up!" instead of "How are you doing, Joe?" I find that the latter bears much more significance and in a way makes someone really feel like someone!

From that point on I have tried to make an effort to use people's names more often... perhaps there are others out there that think the same way as me.

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Off to Colorado in a few days for a week of sight-seeing, hiking, backpacking, rock climbing (on real cliffs, hopefully) and whitewater rafting on the Arkansas river.

kamster