The question we ask all too often is ‘what do you do?’
The reason we do this, is that we have been conditioned by society to use the answer as a way of judging whether the person is worthy or not of our time.
All too often we help that process with our response too, we simply say ‘I’m an accountant’ or ‘I am a doctor’ or ‘I am a waitress’
Perhaps if we answered ‘I help people achieve their dreams through maximising their financial assets’ or ‘I save lives and improve people’s quality of life’ or ‘I make your dinning more special’ The list could go on. But would make a more interesting response and would remove a good deal of the instant judging.
However, surely it isn’t about what we do. Isn’t more interesting to perhaps ask people, ‘what are your values?’ or ‘what things make you happy?’. Or even ‘why do you do what you do?’. Or ‘what are you passionate about?’, ‘what’s your favourite book?’ or ‘who inspires you the most?’ or ‘what’s the most interesting place that you have visited?’. The list can go on and on, once you start to use your imagination and once you get into the habit of finding out something more meaningful about another human being.
It is better to build relationships based on common interest, shared values and trust. What does it matter what someone does as a job? By knowing that it often, will wrongly cloud our judgement.
All people are already worthy, it doesn’t matter what they do, it matters who they are as a person, what they stand for, what inspires them, what they love and why they do what they do.
It is just a habit and it is one worth breaking, it is all about thinking differently, being different and look at the world from the other end of the telescope.
Philip Dodson 