We had a garage sale yesterday and I made two observations:
- People actually come to these things
- We are ego-centric, emotional and meaning making machines (in the best way)
As people trickled into our driveway, it dawned on me that I’m not built for garage sales. I wasn’t mentally prepared for people to haggle with me… I was ready to throw hands (jokes, I can’t fight and they have an unfair advantage of knowing where I live, bad strategy). I saw these things as extensions of myself and as a result, I assigned more value to them. In these shopper’s eyes, my stuff was barely worth a second look. Not going to lie, it hurt my feelings! I tried taking a step back to understand what this experience said about me and human beings. Here are some mental notes
- What matters to you does not necessarily matter to someone else. Taking things personally without understanding someone’s POV is being unreasonable
- Our capacity to form connections/meanings/value is so natural and wonderful. We shouldn’t stifle this need. We shouldn’t be ashamed that we’re “soft” or get attached because that’s also something that makes us human.
- Everyone has a story to tell. This man named Ben was browsing quietly until we initiated a conversation with him and learned how interesting he was. He takes dance twice a week (Bollywood and Latin), he makes office tables for a living, and he looks for cheap shoes to send back to kids in Mexico. I don’t think “How are you?” could have accomplished that. He also bought a bag of my brother’s pre-workout gummies and was teaching us how to salsa! Humanity can be pretty cute sometimes.