A Breath of Life

I read this facebook status the other day and realized it was a MUST SHARE!

"I don't have a blog, but I have a story to share! Read if you're bored, I'll try to keep it brief. Today at work I was going to file a few folders.. Didn't even really notice the man standing at the filing cabinet I needed. I hear him say "hello, how are you?" In a strong accent. I say I'm good how are you, without looking at him, still looking to file my folders. He asks me what my name is, and if I'm new.. I say Andre, what's your name, barely glancing in his direction, focused on my work. I think this is small talk and the conversation is over. So then I hear "where are you from?" So I finally turn and fully face him and I realize he's looking me square in my face, and he's placed his work down on the table next to him. So I answer him and he reaches out to shake my hand and tells me his name and that he's from India. He continues to ask questions and I end up learning about his family here and in India, about his studies and why he's here, some of the differences in lifestyle. He tells me that people back in India are so much happier than here, with much less. He notices that everyone here wants to be rich. He says they live in communities that are so tight-knitted that he has to meet everyone he works with, and know them, and become a friend, and treat them like family. He's not comfortable spending so much time around people and just walking by all day. I learned about their wages for jobs, and other things. He offered me a piece of gum from India. I'm bringing this story up for two reasons. 1 because I want to know why we are so caught up and rushed with everything we do, that we no longer take the time to look up, breathe, and speak to people. I learned about 20 things and tried a piece of weird gum that I never had, within a span of 4 minutes. Leave it up to me and my American ways and I would have never even seen what this mans face looked like. What causes us to be that focused and rushed? Is filing a paper that important that I have to ignore a living breathing human being with knowledge and experiences? The 2nd reason I'm sharing this is because for the rest of that workday I had my head up and was alert, smiling at everybody, engaging myself in little conversation, making work secondary. I took alot from this simple moment, realized something id like to work on changing, and I felt the need to share just in case someone else may feel the same!" - Andre Privott