On my recent trip to America, I ended up talking to a lot of strangers. First of all, the main purpose of my trip was to attend my cousin's wedding and his wife, as well as a huge number of guests, were people I had never met before.
I also ended up talking to a lot of cab drivers, street food vendors etc.
This may seem like a random post, but the point of it is, I learnt so much from them. Whether it was how a certain portion of American visas is reserved for Africans and how the situation in Ethiopia is now improving so many people choose not to leave from Desta (a cab driver who drove us a lot), or about the million muslim march which is scheduled to take place on September 11th this year, or indeed how attitudes to muslims changed after 9/11.
I also learnt a little bit about happiness and how many different sources it can come from. Your whole school life, it's kind of drummed into you that you have to have a career you really love to be happy. And sometimes that is the case, as was proved by the Canadian I sat next to on a flight who now works for Play Station in California and the years it took to get him there were worth it. But your job isn't the only aspect of your life. Your happiness could come from having freedom with your time; if you're a cab driver you can work pretty much whenever you want and and build it around spending time with your kids or fixing up old cars. Happiness could be having enough money to live and enough time to enjoy the money you have. It could be long walks through central park when you get home. I'm only 18; I can't define happiness and I don't intend to, but I hope I continue to learn about it from both people I know and those I don't.
Jack Howard (a YouTuber/internet personality) recently tweeted:
"It's September & I don't have to think about going back to school for the first time in my life. But I'm learning more now than I ever have."
The exact same applies to me (although I intend to go back to school in 2014). There are truly some things you can never ever learn from books or school and many of those things you'll learn about from people. So go ahead and open a conversation with a stranger and see what you find out....
