Harrison Baer
I have one piece of universal advice that will make anyone a more well rounded person. Speak with your Uber driver every single trip you take. Don’t pull out your phone to play candy crush or take a selfie. Sit in that moment and pepper that man or woman with question after question until you walk out of that car. Learn their story. Who are they?
Last night I had a ‘top 3’ uber experience of my life. The experience was so peculiar and unexpected that it left me scratching my head for days.
The person driving was a bulky middle aged white man with a tattoo sleeve running from the back of his hand to the sleeve of his tee shirt. He had a thick, deep southern accent, accompanied by a classic southern man persona. On top of all this, bango music played from the car speakers. I was certain he was born and raised somewhere in the southeast, but being the courteous man I am, I asked anyway.
“Well I was born in South Carolina…..”
Knew it.
“But in my late 20’s I began traveling around the States for a decade.”
Woah woah woah. This guy was a real life wanderer. And not only that, he had lived in almost every state in the U.S. I was astonished for a moment, then flabbergasted.
“Yeah you know the crazy part is my favorite place wasn’t anywhere here. Ireland was the best.”
What on earth is happening. Two minutes ago this guy was a redneck. Now a Europe fan? No way. This guy is a liar, but I’ll play his game.
“Huh why’s that?”
The man paused, took a deep breath, and sighed in disappointment.
“The community is just different over there.”
“Everything is a competition in the States. People trying to be better than everyone else. For example: here, if some guy buys a 70 inch flat screen, all his buddies work overtime to shoot for an 80. In Ireland, if a guy buys that TV, all his friends meet at his house to watch sports and hang out.”
Wow. This guy was not a liar after all. I wanted to hit myself for making assumptions about him. And on top of my mind being blown, the scenario he presented was spot on. I threw my hands in the air and yelped “RIGHT!” We spent the next 15 minutes sharing stories from the months he spent bonding with the Irish, English, French, and German, and my semester of exploring a foreign culture.
It took me days to digest the experience in this Uber, and in the end it left me with two conclusions and a question—
- A guess of a person’s character or background is an unconscious practice of close-mindedness. Ask before you assume.
- The unexpected experiences in life are what we can learn the most from, if we push aside the unsettlement and choose to explore the surprise.
Here’s what I’m asking myself—
What if the point isn’t the screen—it’s who’s sitting beside you?
The simplest way to prove this is to put down your phone and ask your driver:
“If you could create a new country anywhere on the globe, where would it be and why?”
“If you could take one person with you to find the holy grail, who would it be?”
You’ll learn something from the answers, but they aren’t the reason for the questions. The point is to embrace a moment that may leave you scratching your head for days.
