Rabin's article describes a four-day study of 79 college students — 32 men and 47 women - who wore an electronically activated recorder that recorded 30-second snippets of conversation every 12.5 minutes... The happiest person in the study - which was determined by their own admissions to satisfaction with their lives - proved to have an average of 45.9 of their day's conversations as substantive and meaningful... Not surprisingly, only 21.8 percent of the unhappiest person's conversations were meaningful...
I work in a very large and populated environment where I see some people every few months, it seems that all we can muster is "Hello, how are you?," which as we all know if more a greeting than a question...
When people like Peter ask this - I'm wracking my brain right now trying to think of anyone else I know who is like Peter and am failing - they expect a real response...
I have to admit, it takes me aback and I have to think for a while to come up with that answer... I usually respond with what I'm doing, not how I actually am, which is something I think I need to work on... I think that by being a writer, I sometimes hide behind my prose, thinking erroneously that whatever I've committed to the written page is all there is for me to say...
To my great surprise, he wrote in his email with the link to this article that I was one of the people in his life that made these meaningful conversations possible...
Peter's and my lives are quite different and so much time has passed since we saw each other regularly... But he has always been one of the people in my life who taught me to listen well to others and to observe, something I seem to have little difficulty doing in my work... Now it is up to me to apply it elsewhere...
Although he's far away and it seems as if we speak only twice a year, our conversations always give me a lift... So much that years ago, I dubbed him "Vitamin P"... I think it's time for a higher dosage all around...
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