Conversation with a stranger...

You know when you lose your bank card and they send out a new card and PIN with the letter proclaiming in thick black ink:

"Do not write your PIN number down."

You read it, memorize it and discard it (usually in a hundred different pieces after you've taken great pleasure in ripping it up).

Then when you set up a new email address it asks you for your security question which is usually something like:

"What was the name of your first pet?"

To which you duly type the answer knowing you could not possibly ever forget such an important pup...

Well the whole thing is getting to be just a little bit of a joke....

I have three e-mail addresses: one for writing, one for social and one I use to sign upto things which I suspect will at somepoint send me junkmail (no, not those kind of things! Honestly some people just jump to the worst possible conclusions...)

Each email address has a different password and subsequently a different security question. I use one of them to log on to Facebook, a different one for Twitter and the third one for logging onto Blogspot. Each of these sites also has a unique username and password totally different from the email accounts. Combined with my password for YouTube, the three different pieces of information required to do Internet Banking (Username, Pin, and security word) aswell as all the PIN's I have for different cards in my pocket...well its all just getting a bit much to be honest.

I spent the best part of forty five minutes today trying to log onto blogspot because A) I couldnt get the right E-Mail address. B) Couldn't supply the right password and C) For the life of me could not recall if I had remembered to capitalize the first letter's of my secondary school when I first entered the security question's answer.

NIGHTMARE! (*shakes fist angrily at technology once again*)

Anyway I digress, rant over, promise.

Started on my 7-3 week this week and although I loathe the early mornings (honestly why did god rest on the seventh day? Couldnt he just have had a long lie every morning? We all have to work Sundays anyway!) I do have to admit that I secretely love this shift.

Its not that the work is any different, infact its all the same regardless of what time of day or what day of the week it is. It's the fact that I have those blissful two hours between 3-5 to indulge in writing. Chapter twelve is hand-written and to be honest I struggled abit. Writing about emotion and making it feel genuine is incredilbly hard, but i persisted and hopefully it translates well when I type it up (which may or may not be tonight...I can hear my bed calling me!) I tend to find I get more writing done in this one week than I do over every weekend I have in a month! But today something different happened...

I refer to the title 'Conversation with a stranger' although it wasn't really a stranger, but then it kind of was. A person I know sat down beside me today and told me an incredible, really quite fascinating story about their life that I had no idea about. It was fascinating, and sad.

The story was sad in that it caused massive upheavel, to the point which is difficult to comprehend-unless you've experienced it-in this persons life.It was also sad that I had worked beside this person for almost a year and had never taken the time to get to know them.

It got me thinking about how well we really know people...the reality is we don't, save a rare few. A handful of close friends, our families, if your lucky then you'll know the person you love as well as you know yourself. But all the others, they are strangers really. We may pass them in the hallway everyday, sit and discuss politics over lunch (incindentally recently discovered this is NOT an effective topic of conversation when trying to woo prospective partners, go figure?) but we never really know them.

Is it because we're all so self obsessed?

Lol, I can see what your thinking. "Nope, thats not it Phoenix, I'm not self-obsessed" ...if your not, then its a shame.

Its important to care about your own life, your the one thats living it, youve got to give it direction and purpose and if your not living to make yourself happy then why are you bothering? But that doesnt mean we have to be solely wrapped up in our own little worlds.

The world is full of incredible people, and every single one of them has a story. You probably sit next to them on the train, or say 'Hi' to them in the supermarket and for the most part you'll never give their stories a second thought...but I dare you to.

Ask a question, and listen to the answer. Say hello to a stranger and give them a smile. Phone up an old friend you havent seen in years and genuinely ask "How are things?" I dare you to make a difference to that persons day.

I learned an important lesson today. The person told me of a hard time they went through in their life, a time when they fell hard and things must have seemed so bleak. But they never failed.

As hard as it must have been they picked themselves back up and started again. I have a new found respect for this person because they had the strength to keep going even when they were hardest hit.

People really are incredible.

Go out and make some new friends, hug a stranger, get to know someone...

I dare you.

SBP