I was talking with a friend at the gym this week about working from home.  While there are a number of positives, the biggest negative for me is not having the face-to-face contact with people.  Sure, there are a lot of alternatives, like instant messaging and video calls, but they don’t quite measure up to the experience of an in-person interaction.

My friend agreed, but also mentioned how for her grand kids, video conversations are what they’re use to, and are more common for them than face-to-face conversations.  She also mentioned her grandkids are growing up with Face Time and other video chat tools, and see these types of interactions as normal as we would see an in-person visit from our grand parents back in the day.

That was an interesting reminder to me about how differently we all look at the world through the lens of our own experience.  What may seem mainstream to me, could be unusual to others, and vice versa.  And that’s ok!  We all have different life experiences that shape our lenses.

I think it’s important to be mindful f this in our interactions with others.  It’s easy to assume everybody sees the world through the same lens as I do, but that’s simply not true.  When I take time to listen to others, I gain a better understanding of the lens they view the world through.  If I listen close enough, I can even understand how their lens was formed.

I’m thankful we aren’t all the same.  While that might make some things easier, it would certainly be less interesting to live in a world where everyone looked through the same lens as me.