What you can learn from living with 100 strangers. Who wants to volunteer?
I understand the hesitation but there has been an interesting dynamic at play that I think is extremely applicable to every day life outside of my current surroundings. Living with 100 men, all strangers, all ages, all from different backgrounds, different socio-economic status, family life, experiences and general outlook on the world has set the stage for a perfect social experiment and if open to it, a lesson to be learned.
We go about our everyday lives constantly interacting with others for small amounts of time; short but frequent moments in our lives. Whether that be bank tellers, coffee baristas, person showing up at your house to fix something, store clerks… we all have numberous small, mostly forgettable interactions with other humans every day. But for the most part, we mentally file these encounters away as benign because we assume that we will never see this person again and spend very little energy focusing on or appreciating the moment. What if we were present for these interactions? Consciously respectful, pleasant and friendly; independent of how stressful, annoying or chaotic we preceive our life to be outside of this “conversation”. Could we positively impact society as a whole… one interaction at a time?
Seems lofty but really think about it for a bit. When we live with someone, we know that we will see them often and interact constantly… we are also well aware that this person will be in the same space as us when we sleep so we must inherently have a degree of trust with him/her. For these reasons, we attempt to treat this person with respect as often as possible and maintain a pleasant relationship and in turn a quality living environment. In my current situation, every relationship (for the most part) with 100 complete strangers is a positive and respectful one. I have to imagine that if we took this unique environment and applied the same principles to every day life in the real world… positive results would inevitably ensue. I once heard that it is almost impossible to be mad while you are genuinely laughing… happiness breeds happiness… respect breeds respect… Makes sense to me.
So, next time you are annoyed at Starbucks because the meter outside is about to expire and you’re still waiting for your triple espresso on ice after an unbelievably unacceptable 7 mo**erf*c*ing minutes. Think about the barista behind the counter (with 10 orders to make) coming home to your house and sleeping in his/her own bed… right next to yours tonight. Then decide if being rude really helps the situation in any way. Alters the perspective a bit… doesn’t it?
Change the world, one cordial interaction at a time with the strangers we meet and our days will be better, our moods will be uplifted and your barista might give you an extra shot next time (on the house).
Just a thought from a guy on bunk K02-006…. #41 out of 100.