We all get the feeling of being lost, asking ourselves the question, what is the point of all this, and why should I care?
We think we are the only person asking these question internally. But many other people move in and out of asking these questions to their inner selves. We ask the question at low points in life, at the high points and at times where we are just pondering the big life questions.
Everyone, yes, everyone is asking questions like this and, at times, even deeper versions of this truth.
It’s normal. It is to be human.
What is not normal is asking them openly.
However, that should be what is expected.
Crack the lid open on these big life questions. I say get them out there.
We never open up on these questions and ask them aloud. We should.
When you finally do, the conversations are delightful and entertaining. Imaginations flow, and the people in the discussions are creative, innovative and exciting in their theories and thoughts. People come alive with conversation when throwing around a world of possibilities. There is no limit to the ideas, and they bounce and feed off each other…
More questions are layered on and pull the chat in other directions. It becomes viral in its invention. The body language changes, eye contact and the open and welcoming faces are the centrepieces of the energy. It is a buzz of noise and laughter: laughter, that stuff. It is excellent for the soul. Nuggets of gold in the shape of ideas are formed, and I grab them with both hands.
This is what the best people do, they steal. They take willingly and then go on and create actions and new ideas for themselves.
The great artists did this. Why not you?
This is what human interaction is supposed to be about. Staring into phones and sharing keynotes won’t change the world. Conversation will.
Is it a dying art form?
Don’t lose the art of conversation, and if you want people to put down their phones and engage, then ask the right questions. Inspire the moment by throwing in the more eminent questions. The right questions usually involve opening up. So, again, be the role model and open yourself up. Ask the questions out in the open that you ask yourself.
Don’t stick it on a keynote; you will kill the conversation stone cold dead.
Open it up. Be brave—Chuck the old caution into the face of the terrible wind. Upset the usual and let the real dialogue flow.
Think big, think differently, and others will engage with that thinking. It’s infectious. Open up, and others will align, and their conversation will keep you going. They will give you momentum.
They will give you the meaning of life:
Conversation.
“It’s not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly…. Who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
Teddy Roosevelt
For All Life's Adventures 