I’m the type of person who believes people come into your life for specific reasons. 

At last week’s EYT, I had a great conversation with a family that was attending for the first time. They were from Northwest Indiana, a town over from where I grew up in Dyer. They had just moved back after a few years of living in another state, but they’d been following along with posts about EYT events. They were excited to finally be able to get their daughter bowling at EYTs. We had so much in common that chatting with them and welcoming them to their first EYT gave me goosebumps. After our conversation, it really got me thinking about how the universe puts people in your life that are really meant to be there. And the abundance of people and opportunities that are there for us. 

I believe this is as true for any interaction, though, positive or not.

What if everyone is put in your life for a reason? What if you were supposed to meet every single person that you’ve come in contact with?

The reason why is not always obvious when you first meet them, though.

Maybe they are there to teach you something, or maybe you’re there to teach them something…

It’s just a matter of maintaining a sort of growth mindset or open mind whenever you are meeting new people. Somewhere in there, there’s a learning opportunity for one of you.

I can think of people I see regularly who I probably wouldn’t have personally chosen for my life, but I’ve realized that maybe the reason that they’re in my life is for the learning – both on my side and theirs. 

For example, not too long ago, I had a regular experience interacting with a customer service person who I could see didn’t enjoy working with people.  In response, I could have interacted equally as coldly. I could have easily given back to her the energy that she was giving me. But I realized I had a choice. When I started thinking about it, I realized I don’t know the story behind why she is cold with customers. I don’t know how she feels about herself. I don’t know her entire situation. Maybe she’s in that customer service role – as tough as it is for her – to learn, even if she doesn’t realize that part yet. 

Instead of being so quick to judge, it’s important to try to simply understand that everyone is coming to each interaction from a different place. So it’s up to us to simply choose to learn and be open.

I love to get to know people’s stories. I don’t look at customer service people as just somebody who can do something for me. I look at everybody as a human with a story. And, I love learning people’s stories. So, every time I interacted with this girl, I remained the same. I chose to be extra kind and truly tried to keep engaging her in conversation, even though every time, I kept getting the same cold reply.

Then one day, I walked over to her, and she answered with sincerity. She even started asking me questions. It was no longer one-directional, me asking questions to learn more about her. I don’t know exactly what happened in her life that changed her, but I do know that she was no longer cold to me anymore.

This confirmed to me that I was approaching the situation in the right way. When I experience someone being rude or cold to me, I don’t know their story. But I do know myself. So I can stay steady and keep learning. Even though it’s hard to see someone being unkind because it’s different from the way I am, I really do try to give them grace. I can acknowledge the fact that not everybody lives the same life.

Think about the people that you see every day. The teller at the bank. The barista at the cafe. The server at the restaurant. How do you approach those interactions?

Do you look them in the eyes? Do you ask them how their day is going?

When I’m out at a restaurant, I’m super friendly and always conversing with the server – to a fault. Sometimes I think it makes John uncomfortable because, being in the restaurant industry, he doesn’t want me to distract them from their job. Also, he’s a big-time introvert. But I just talk to them like normal people, and I think they appreciate that. Most people look at somebody at the bank, at the library, wherever, as someone just being paid to do this one thing for them. A generic service worker rather than a human.

All day long, we’re interacting with people on so many levels. What if we walked around with the view of acknowledging other people’s value in our lives while also knowing that maybe we’re providing value to them too? We’re all in a value and learning exchange as humans..

When you look someone in the eye and acknowledge the value in that interaction, it really upgrades your day-to-day experiences. And they will feel better too. It’s a simple habit you can integrate into your life immediately that has big emotional returns.