I believe in meeting a new person. If one took a moment to greet a new person every day, many negative attitudes would have died out a long time ago. This is a personal lesson I have learned in my life. During one of the summer vacations, the school had organized an excursion for the football club to the east coast. The group made a stopover in one of the Malls in New York City. Before the September 2011 Al-Qaeda attack on the US soil, New Yorkers were perceived as being aggressive, snobbish and vulgar; therefore, teasing was almost unlikely. Nevertheless, one of my close friend and I gathered the courage to ask randomly several persons that stood on the sidewalks about the best places with delicious hot dogs in the city.
The question elicited a plethora of responses; however, the business professionals that one would have appeared busy even to spend a second to listen to young teenagers were the first persons to respond to the question. I realized that by sacrificing some of your time to converse with another person whom you have even never met may mean a lot not only to you but also to you. This is a philosophy that I have carried to this day since my high school days. During my high school days, I lived a skeptical life that I never believed that I could make any person listen to me. I believed that busy people seldom had any time to waste listening to unproductive conversations. I also believed that personal prejudice could have barred people from engaging in any form of conversation. Indeed, my perceptions were wrong (Mayberry).
In my junior years, I was requested to share the strangest thing that I ever did in my life. I was quick to speak about the moment when I engaged the New Yorkers, whom I thought at first would ignore me based on my age and size. However, they did not ignore any of my questions. Each day during my junior school years, I made sure I spoke with a new person. I would find out their name, their background which included their place of birth and several facts about their life. Often, the questions I posed to each new person differed. Furthermore, I made sure that I met people of different nationalities. I also ensured that I made an intellectual vision of the person to ensure that I could acknowledge or greet that person if I happened to meet them. Indeed, not every person in my class took embraced my philosophy. Some of them thought it was a joke, but to me, I considered it a way of making someone’s day interesting and amazing (Audi 419–434).
Some people may claim that my philosophy is valueless because they believe nothing important has happened in my life. However, my philosophy is relevant and has taught me numerous moral lessons. I believe it is a great initiative for a person to sacrifice their valuable time by engaging a new person in conversation to know about their lives and learn something new. It is also a sign of respect to acknowledge the same people when you meet them on the way one more time. As well, showing respect to other people is a sign of tolerance. If people could learn the value of respect, tolerance, and consideration, the world would be a better place than it is. If every person could meet a new person each day, and keep memory about them, then, racism and tribalism would never have a place in the society.
Works Cited
Audi Robert. Dispositional beliefs and dispositions to believe. Nous, 1994 28(4): 419–434
Mayberry, Matt. The Incredible Power of Believing in Yourself: Entrepreneur. https://www.entrepreneur.com/author/matt-mayberry