Lessons From Strangers: What Can Others Teach Us About Ourselves?
Observing strangers can sometimes teach us the exact lessons we need
Other people can hold a mirror to ourselves — especially strangers. We get to watch them being themselves, look at behavioural cues and physical traits, without ever getting to know them properly. And in observing people without knowing them, we can sometimes see exactly the lessons and messages that we needed to see.
Like the man who kept saying “Hi, I’m Shah Rukh Khan” to everyone who walked past him at Bandra Bandstand. I wondered if he was a theatre actor, doing an exercise in fearlessness. We went our separate ways after this fleeting interaction and I was left with a deep realisation of an oft-repeated pop-psychology fact: people probably don’t think about me as much as I think they do. This man had just said the most absurd thing to me and I didn’t think about it twice.
Or the woman in the burqa who works out on the open gym machines, alone in the midst of about 15 men. Maybe this was only possible because one of these men was her husband, but she was confident nonetheless. From her I learnt to shed my fear of putting myself first, no matter what others think. Among those who watch me, there will be at least one person who stops and admires me for my courage.
I also saw the sweetest thing — a young woman with purple streaks in her hair that was walking with an aid, clearly suffering from an injury or a disability. She whistled very quietly, and then I saw a stray dog run away from the food that had distracted him to join her again on her walk. It looked like this was a dog that she met everyday on her morning walk, but not her pet. Looking at them, I realised that it’s okay to have companions that only play one specific role in your life, without being there all the time.
Reflecting on these profound messages, I realised that perhaps the biggest lesson of all is — if we keep our eyes and our imaginations open, we can find inspiration to change in the most random instances. We just have to receive and remember these lessons.
