Knowing you!

“Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.” 1 

Every time I meet people I am curious, involved, and engaged. I want to know them for real, and I feel I am most present when I am interacting with people when I don't know the factual details about their life and fill in the blanks with everything they say with my presumptuousness when we are interacting with each other. So I don't google them before we have had a chance to meet and really talk to each other. 

Now, I know that I am the least qualified person to make this comment because I don't use social media apps but I trust several others who do use social media and often talk about the difference between perception and reality. But to me that feels like an issue too - what if we form an opinion of a person based on perception and do discover reality being different but mentally cannot reconcile the two? Why go through this extra effort when things can be much simpler with a clean slate? 

I do want to acknowledge though that I do not take this approach in professional settings. We need factual knowledge and know people before we can have a meaningful conversation with them in a professional setting where time is limited and the agenda is outlined (implicitly or explicitly). So every professional meeting I go to, I thoroughly research the people I am meeting and build on that knowledge in my conversations.

There is no right or wrong though because different things work for different people. This is what works for me and this is how I am!

Date: 18th April 2023