Filter Through Life

I had a long conversation with a co-worker today.  If I weren’t on salary some would say too long, but that’s another story.  Anyway, this guy is a fairly young guy, not much older than me.  He is always friendly but I don’t see him talk a whole heck of a lot.  He kind of sits in his office, works and goes home.  But when he does talk, he talks. 

This person is someone that thinks about what he is going to say.  He is not someone that opens his mouth and lets poop fall out.  I like this kind of person.  I think this guy.  He is very thoughtful and says a lot of profound things when he does talk. 

A couple of things I took from our conversation: 

He likes history.  History tends to repeat itself and in order to prepare ourselves for the future one must have knowledge of the past. 

He is very wise.  He does not claim to know everything or even much of everything but he does claim to be seeking it.  He even said he has read a lot of books and his favorite is The Bible.  We talked about the living nature of the Bible; that was a cool blip of our conversation. 

I glean more wisdom when I am not talking, or waiting to.  I really thought about this after we talked.  I spent a few minutes waiting for a moment to talk.  I waited because interrupting is one of my pet peeves.  Anyway, I caught myself and realized that I wasn’t really listening; I was waiting for my chance to talk.  When I shut off my tongue and gave myself a chance to listen I really learned some stuff.  I couldn’t have done that if I were talking or thinking about talking.  Besides, I am less likely to say something stupid if I am really listening. 

I can’t wait for next month when we will talk again.