Impact

During the last week I started to think very much about the impact I have on people around me. A few weeks ago and last night I did something which reminded me even more of one of my good friends that is not here with us anymore.

A few weeks ago I started to talk with a person using a random question, a random thing that lead to something I had never have in my mind. This relation (not relationship :P ) is reminding me so much of my friend, is reminding me so much of the freedom of speech and the trust we build between us without even knowing why. But one thing that I learned from that situation 3 years ago is that you need to be open minded enough to accept that sometimes you just find someone around you that you have an automatic connection with. But I will never forget how that conversation at 4 a.m., 3 years ago, lead to a beautiful friendship, lead to something which I still have deep in my heart.

Last night I did something I have done in cold day in the winter of 2008. Because in that cold morning I have forced him to think and talk about feelings buried deep in his soul. Doing that in that moment, so not selfish, so honest made me earn a friend that has been close to me for the next 3 years.

I started to think today about this because I find it interesting: you can start a relation, a connection in a random way, but the end it's not that random. Being here, so far way from home, I was "obliged" to appreciate a lot more people around me, friends, family, feelings etc. And now I start realizing that I did something which is not me: I started a conversation with an unknown person, I was not shy how I am in these types of situations, something pushed me to be... courageous and that thing (which I cannot explain) got me to a totally unexpected situation. Something pushed me to find out more about this person and I find the situation extremely... weird, but good weird.

Sometimes we build walls around us, sometimes we get hurt and scared and we close ourselves from any contact with the exterior, sometimes we run halfway around the world, hoping it will do good to us, hoping we will never get hurt again, hoping we end up in a place where people don't know us and don't criticize. We reach a level of self protection that high that it's almost impossible for other people to get to us, in any way. The experiences I was talking before made me wanting to tear those walls down, to be opened even if I might get hurt, to stop running around the world, because I might miss something great, something great which is right in front of my eyes.

I don't know what made me to stop being shy and ask that question, but something tells me I did a good thing.

PS: going to Mexico to the international conference showed me pretty much the same thing: I met people there, with some of them I'm still talking, but even if I'm not talking with them right now (on a daily basis), something changed in us because of our interaction in that conference.

We always have an impact on people around us. It's just up to us to decide what kind of impact we want to have. And it's up to us to choose if we let people around us to have an impact on us.