conversation is an engine

show up for a few of your conversations today

There’s you. And your conversation partner. And since your discussion stumbled into talking about money, your Grandad showed up who always said “Save your money.” If you talk politics, some talking head from Fox shows up, or some voice from NPR joins in. You didn’t invite them. But you really did, because you heard them speak and absorbed their words as truth—at least until you repeat them aloud. Then you start to wonder.

Maybe you went to a funeral over the weekend and the widow shows up in your conversation, with what she said about her husband, your friend. And then your daughter shows up, because of the tiny gravestone she put over the mole you buried in the back yard ten years ago: “Here lies one dead mole.”

And sometimes even you don’t show up to your own conversations. And neither does your conversation partner. Because you’re both on autopilot and talking past one another as you walk past one other down the long hallway toward the coffee machine.

A good conversation is part mystery, part shining beauty, part toilsome information exchange—and frequently all three. But you need to show up.

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Image Credit: Jay Fleck