Lesson learned

I remember the story fairly well. It started around a dinner table surrounded by familiar faces on what had become our Sunday night tradition of dinner with our small group. I listened as Mona explained to us that she had been to Chucky Cheese with her son Skylar, and while there she spotted a young man wearing a shirt with a phrase she was unfamiliar with. Mona explained the shirt said, "it's lit," and she ended up approaching him to ask what it meant.

There I sat, an introverted, millennial male, who knew what the shirt meant, but would have never approached the guy even if I wasn't familiar with the phrase. I ended up suggesting to Mona that the next time something like that happened, she could just "Google it." In a gentle, innocent, and brilliant rebuttal, Mona simply said, "yes, but I would have missed the chance to talk with someone who I didn't know and who wasn't like me."

In that moment I remember feeling so many things. What still lingers today is the immense invitation to curiosity and vulnerability that Mona displayed. She walked up to someone who was a stranger and asked for an answer to something she didn't know. She asked so she could connect to a person in such a unique and rare way. In my life those things same few and far between. I often choose to hide and protect my insecurities. I believe that I'll be dismissed or shamed. I play out scenarios in my head where I get cut down or ignored and I choose to stop myself. I tend to think that my curiosity and desire to genuinely connect to another person isn't worth the small risk I would be taking by saying something.

I would imagine a moment like this may go unnoticed for Mona. I've always experienced her as someone who asks questions when they are on her mind. She seems to be able to maneuver her inner voice and self-doubts in a way that allows her be expressive in a way that scares me. It has also made me jealous. In that moment I felt challenged in the best of ways. I felt challenged to lay down my self-doubt and my previous experiences that seemed to be holding me back. I felt challenged to risk, because actually talking with someone is more important than just using the internet to answer a question. I felt challenged because in that moment it wasn't really about me or Mona, it was about the man wearing the shirt. I would assume he has often been asked what that shirt meant. I would imagine like most of us, we are in some ways scared to be seen, but desperate for it at the same time.

I think the invitation is there for all of us in a story like this. Who do we see, and then feel curious about, but decide not to pursue? How often to we have a chance to connect and decide to play it safe? What are we missing out on when we aren't curious and vulnerable?