You’ve probably had this experience–perhaps recently. Or maybe you’re about to have it in the coming weeks. It might be at a holiday party or a family event or while traveling on a plane. You find yourself next to a stranger, and one of you strikes up a conversation–but before long, the awkward truth becomes all too clear:

You have NOTHING in common!

HELP! What do you talk about? What do you DO?

Do you spend the rest of the five-hour flight quietly perusing the in-flight magazine? Do you excuse yourself and lock yourself in the restroom (whether you need to use it or not)? Or do you just just accept that you have nothing to talk about and, as politely as possible, move on to other potential conversationalists?

My advice is… none of the above.

I recommend that you try a novel approach: Rather than frantically search for some common ground, talk about the things you DON’T have in common.

Take a step out of your conversational comfort zone!

• Learn about the other person’s interests–even if they’re not your own (or especially if they’re not your own–you already know about your own interests!).
• Talk about a topic you don’t know much about–without pretending that you do! (This is where the art of asking questions becomes invaluable!)
• Try to see how someone else might be fascinated by a topic you generally find boring.

This doesn’t mean that you’ll necessarily share their enthusiasm or start seeing the world through someone else’s eyes. It just means that you’re willing to consider another person’s perspective.

This is how your world enlarges. This is how you become less parochial. This is how you realize that “it takes all kinds of people to make the world go around”–and that this diversity is part of what makes the world such a great place. You DON’T have to have common interests to find one another of interest.

In fact, wouldn’t it be boring if we ALL had the same interests, ideas, perspectives, and experiences? It would be like the Bob Dylan line: “It ain’t no use talkin’ to me, it’s just the same as talkin’ to you.”

Of course, I’m not suggesting that you suffer through someone being rude, obnoxious, or just plain asinine. However–assuming that a person is polite and genuine, and merely has very different perspectives and/or life experiences–you might miss out if you curtail a potential discussion simply because you don’t see eye-to-eye on every point.

If you’d like to give this approach a try, here are some mental games that might make it easier:

• Imagine that you’re interviewing them for a newspaper. Your job isn’t to judge–it’s just to get their story and their perspective.
• Pretend that they’re a fictional character–or a potential fictional character who you’re considering using in a novel you’re writing. What matters isn’t so much whether you share their perspective, but whether they’d make a good character.
• Imagine that you’re an anthropologist, doing your best to understand an unfamiliar subculture (such as accountants or model-plane aficionados).

Remember, you don’t necessarily have to become friends with everyone you meet. Nor do you have to develop an interest in their hobbies. (Half an hour of discussing stamp collecting might be enough to last you a lifetime!) It’s just a way to expose yourself to something different.

You can think of these conversations as mini vacations: You “travel” to a foreign land, where you encounter unfamiliar customs and/or styles (and/or interests, ideas, etc.). You do your best to understand and hopefully enjoy those who you meet.

But you (probably) don’t end up moving to this country. You’re just visiting.

At the end of the vacation, you come home. You return to what’s familiar, what you know and enjoy. But hopefully, you also see things a little differently. You appreciate what you have and what you do, while remembering that there’s a whole world out there–a world of different ideas, interests, perspectives, and experiences. A world that, in many ways, is very different from your own life.

But rather than seeing differences as “wrong” or threatening or even just boring, you can choose to see them as reminders of just how diverse the human population is–and what a wonderful blessing this is for all of us!

During the Christmas season, people tend to talk (and sing) more about the voices of angels. Whether it’s singing a carol (such as “Angels We Have Heard on High” or “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”) or complimenting an “angelic” choir, we imagine angels’ voices to be transcendently beautiful.

But what do you think our voices would sound like to angels?

Would they enjoy our voices? Would they appreciate our words? Would they understand us–no matter what language we speak?

Some people might imagine that angels can understand all languages, but let’s imagine for a moment that the opposite is true: they don’t understand any earthly language.

Let’s imagine that angels watch and listen to us from their clouds (or wherever they hang out), but they don’t understand our words. What they DO understand is our tone, our attitude, and the intention behind our words–in short, our energy.

It’s just like us watching/listening to a conversation in a foreign language. Even if we don’t understand a single word, we can usually gauge the essence of what’s being communicated: joy, anger, boredom, or love.

Whether or not you understand the language, can’t you can tell when people are being sincere or sarcastic, when they’re genuinely interested in two-way communication or when they just want to put someone in their place (or ram their opinions down their throat), or when they don’t want to be there at all–and are just waiting for the first opportunity to get away?

This doesn’t take any special training. After all, approximately 93% of communication is nonverbal (55% body language and 38% vocal tone, volume, etc.), and most of us pick up on the nonverbal cues without even trying–or even being consciously aware of them. But I think that there’s more to this than simply noticing someone’s crossed arms, rolled eyes, or a quick glance at their watch. I think that we all naturally sense one another’s energy.

Which brings us back to the angels…

Imagine that  as angels watch and listen to you, they can’t understand your words. Perhaps they don’t even hear you in the standard, human sense. They just sense the energy that you’re transmitting.

Energy is the language of angels!

Even if you’re saying trite words or nothing at all, they “hear” (or feel) when you’re sharing love. On the other hand, if you speak eloquently but with no energy–no real feeling behind your words–they wouldn’t hear a thing.

Let’s take our thought experiment a step further: Imagine that the angels also can’t see in the normal, human sense. They can’t detect physical movement–only the movement of energy.

Now, as I’m sure you realize, I’m not referring to energy in the mundane sense, such as burning calories. It’s certainly possible to use up a lot of this kind of energy without transmitting anything significant, without “speaking the language of the angels.”

For instance, someone running around frantically, rushing around in meaningless activity (or, at least, meaningless to them–the proverbial “sound and fury, signifying nothing”) looks to the angels as if they weren’t moving at all. On the other hand, a tiny movement that conveys a lot of energy would look like a huge movement to the angels, even if it seemed like nothing was happening from a typical human perspective.

So, what would these angels see and hear if they observed you?

• Would they feel the love behind your words?
• Would they sense the flow of positive energy in your actions?
• Or would it look like nothing much was happening, no matter how much you said and did?

Whether we think of this literally or metaphorically, it’s helpful to remind ourselves–especially during the holiday season–that we don’t have to move mountains (or throw elaborate parties or buy everyone extravagant gifts) to make the angels smile. Just remember how powerful even a few simple, sincere words can be. Or a small, loving gesture. Or a smile.

If the energy behind your words and actions is positive, that’s what ultimately matters. That’s what’s real.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!! 🙂