While listening to the podcast “The Influence You Have” I had goosebumps, not because of the topic being discussed but for how hard it made me question what I do on a daily basis, and it highlights how as humans we are knowledgeable of our actions and consequences but it proves we are ignorant of ourselves. The woman who is pregnant riding the subway is in no way in more need of a seat than the 13 year old boy listening to music, but as the podcasters wonderfully pointed out, as people we want to help, we want to be wanted, we also want to not be wanted. In a hypothetical world where the woman asks the boy for his seat, the boy is thinking that he doesn’t want to be wanted, but as soon as the women makes contact by asking him a question, he now wants to help… he wants to be wanted, and when that want is fulfilled he just might feel a little better about not only his day or his demeanor, but now his life feels better because he helped someone.

 Everyday we go throughout life always assuming the worst, especially with time saying things like “oh what if there’s traffic” or I don’t know if i’ll have time for that” or the best “i’ll try to see if I have time”… when we say these things we don’t truly understand what they mean to others. For the “i’ll try to see if I have time” is the ultimate cop out. You’re being honest by letting it be known to this person that you have very limited time because you have so much going on, but you are also telling them you don’t have time “for them” which is much more different than not having time at all. But instead the order of priority for your time does not include them, thus you must check to make time. Kinda like making a pot of coffee for unannounced visitors… an inconvenience. And sadly I feel that more and more we lose a connection to our words, because we don’t fully comprehend what our words feel like to others.

The greatest time I could think about and relate to this, was not too long ago. It was the early days of the pandemic, and my brother came to live with me when we were evicted from the home we grew up in. I was working 60+ hours a week and I usually took about 17 credits a semester. My brother just works full time and one day wants to go to college. So we lived together but didnt see eachother much because of how busy we were. And one day I got home from work and he stopped me in the kitchen and said “hey good news, I got a new job making good money at this place called Parker and their an amazing company” and since I was short on time, I told him that’s amazing, and im proud your getting out there and trying to do more.

 So I went and barricaded myself in my room to study like always and didn’t think anything of it. And then one day I again came home from work and I asked my brother how the new job was going. His face was the face of true pain and sadness and he looked at me and he said please don’t be mad, but they let all the temps go, they did it because they needed to let us go because of COVID-19, but i’m looking for new jobs now… I stopped him mid thought and asked him why he was sorry, its not like they fired him. And that’s when he told me “ im sorry because you told me you were proud of me, and it just meant so much I feel like I failed…” what my brother said to me absolutely killed me because I always was proud of my big brother for many things.

 And that’s why I really relate to this topic and how our words leave an imprint on people, on how even a positive statement of “im proud of you” could mean the world to them because they may have never heard it before. I hope from this podcast it just might have someone think differently for one fraction of a second so that they have the off chance to do or say something uplifting for someone, because we never know how much negativity they have received that day.