Start the dance music….
Hi how are you?…. asked the person at the checkout, asked the person at the next store, and the one after that.
It’s the same question that you and I get asked countless times every day….
Will you take the lead?
How do you reply?
Today …. I felt like replying….. “Don’t beeeep ask, you are NOT really interested, and if I told you I feel like beeeeep and feel like I want to go on a rampage, you’d recoil at a million mile an hour and be calling for security and the police”….. but what did I say ” Good thanks, you?”
This dance of social convention goes on, day in day out……
Who really wants to dance anyway?
The truth is very few people really mean it when they ask, and very few people stop to think about what might REALLY be happening for the person who they asked.
Did they stop to consider:
They have a child in serious condition in hospital,
they have just come from treatment for a serious illness,
their partner has left them,
they have just come from the funeral of their best friend…… or a myriad of other possible scenarios.
Stop the music….
Let’s do something different…. let’s change the tune.
Let’s try a new question like…..
Now you can take the lead
A question like……… that’s your choice, but if you are going to do a social dance how about you choose
a) a question about which you would really be interested
b) a question that doesn’t make the other person feel compelled to give a glib answer