I have discovered that I am a very quirky person. Not that I didn’t already realize that, but it seems to become more obvious even to me at times. For instance, in the regular world people come up to me all the time and say, “hello, how are you?” Now common courtesy says the response should be, “Fine, or good, and how are you?” Then they reply the same and you both go on your way. Except that’s not me.
I’m the sort of odd person that tries to use words for a specific purpose. In fact, one of my new intentions this year is to work on this more in myself. I just think we would all be so much better, the world would be a better place, if people would use their words for encouragement, blessing, and more constructively. Now is that possible all the time? No, I don’t think so, I mean, we all get frustrated and frankly no one wants to be around “little miss happy go lucky” all the time. I don’t walk around shooting rainbows from my fingertips, or having birds land on me while I sing either. Actually, birds kind of freak me out because they don’t like me, but that’s a whole other subject.
So what’s the proper way to respond to, “Good morning, or hello, how are you?” Well, the proper way is probably what I stated before, but me being quirky, I usually just say, “Good morning” or “Hello,” and go on my way. Is this considered rude? I mean, I didn’t TELL them how I was, and more importantly I didn’t ask them.
First off, at least from my perspective, I don’t consider this rude because we are all busy and while they are being friendly, kind and even polite, I don’t want to just give a perfunctory response. It’s a waste of words and time. When I want to know how someone is, I ask. Then I stop what I am doing to listen to what they have to say. I do this when I have the time to be respectful, attentive and listen to the response and when it seems that they might have the time to interact and not rush off to their next daily activity. I make the time to listen and might even ask some questions before moving on, but when I do then I have a good idea of what that person has been doing and at least what might be going on with them that day. If I sense they are down then I will take the time to try to make them smile either by doing something nice, sharing or suggesting something I might know that could help.
I absolutely love to listen to people. It’s one of my favorite past times to sit and listen to people talk about their lives, how they met friends, or their significant other, stories about their children, their pets, people they meet, jobs, or parents, it doesn’t really matter, I just love listening to what I believe to be the heartbeat of life. That’s why I will not be the one to say, “Hi, how are you,” then walk away because I don’t have time or don’t care to listen. 
SpilledCookies 