I Took My Own Advice

Get out of your comfort zone

The news has been dominated the past few days about the shooting of Charlie Kirk. I don’t feel the need to add another opinion to the pile. If I did, it would probably come from a place of anger, and right now, I’d rather focus on something more hopeful.

After I posted a recent article about supporting your community, I decided I should probably practice what I preach. When it comes to boycotting, I do alright and always try to shop local when I can.

But when it comes to talking with my neighbors, I’ll admit I’ve been slacking. I wouldn’t call myself an introvert, but the dynamic here is different from where I grew up. I talk to a few neighbors here and there, but most of the folks around me might as well be strangers.

My neighborhood has become increasingly diverse over the past few years. Some people have lived here longer than I’ve been alive. But as those people move on from here, for whatever reason that may be, younger, more diverse people move in.

I try to go for walks every day and tend to see the same people around or in front of their house. It’s not like we ignore each other. We exchange some pleasantries and then go on with our day. And I am fine with that, frankly, people annoy me.

But after thinking about it, I just felt that I needed to get out of my comfort zone. No one likes doing this. But to be frank, if you want to grow as a person, or even in your career, you have to do it.

I’m not a salesperson, and I’ll be the first to say salespeople are snakes. But at one point in my life I was desperate for work and took a sales job. I had to cold-call people, and it made me miserable. But I’ll be damned if I didn’t learn a lot, and become more comfortable doing things I hate.

So the other day I went for a walk and ran into a familiar face. Someone I have never said more to than “Hi.” This time I decided to stop and have a small chat. I learned their name (except I am terrible with names, and immediately forgot), the area they live, and a little about them.

As the week went on, we ran into each other again, and I stopped and chatted a bit. This time the conversation was a little long with a little more substance. No, I didn’t ask their name again, I feel like I need to wait a bit before I can do that. Correct me if I am wrong. Seriously, I don’t know proper etiquette for this.

What I found is that conversations don’t have to be complicated. Just start with small talk, and before long you find some common ground on bigger issues. From there the door is open for deeper conversations.

Before long, I was having similar chats with others. I always started small. But my goodness, some people just wanted to tell me all their business. I did a lot of listening with those people, but did learn a lot.

People love to talk and gossip about other neighbors. I’d be lying if I said I don’t get a kick out of it sometimes, but I don’t want that to be all of my conversations with them.

But most of us wanted to talk about our ideas for the neighborhood, and a lot of us were on the same page when it came to the local community. We want to see the city plant more trees, and turn some empty lots into parks. It sounds like some of them have even brought it up in city council meetings, but it hasn’t gone anywhere.

There were obviously a few things said that I didn’t necessarily agree with. But I would listen and then say my piece. On the grand scale of politics, I think most people I talked to were on the same page, but it was just some local discussions about some work the city is doing.

The big thing here is the listening piece. I don’t know about you, but when someone says something stupid I just want to interrupt them and then tell them how wrong they are. It took a lot deep down not to do this. I tried my hardest to let them say their piece before I went on.

Of course, not everyone listens back. That’s fine, you figure out who those people are and keep it polite without investing much energy. A quick “hi” and move on.

A lot of people aren’t comfortable being frank. But if someone dominates the conversation, there’s nothing wrong with cutting through the noise and telling the truth. Say your piece, and if they only want to hear themselves talk, move on. And if they keep irritating you? Well, that’s when you light a bag of poo on their porch and run off. (I’m kidding of course, please don’t ding dong ditch your neighbor.)

As the conversations got deeper, I tried to find at least one thing in common and build from there. My hope wasn’t to win arguments or make best friends, but just to leave people thinking about what we talked about.

Now I feel like I have a few more acquaintances around the neighborhood and hope we can build a stronger community down the road. At the end of the day, community is built by the people who live there and put the effort in.