Junior, a close friend of mine brings a positive energy and life into any room she enters. She focuses her entire attention on you and listens while you talk to her so much that you feel that she cares about you and appreciates you as a person and when she responds to you she shows that she is not judging you at all. She does this not only to her close friends and relatives but everyone she meets and as a result of this most people love Junior. Just by interacting with me in friendship Junior taught me a simple concept, so simple I couldn't believe I'd never known it. Prior to befriending Junior I tended to be withdrawn when in the company of strangers or of people whom I thought didn't like me, I was afraid that they would judge me wrongly and Junior taught me not to worry about being judged wrongly. She said those people were probably also worrying about how I would judge them and it was up to either them or myself to make the first move to bridge the gap between us and warm up to each other. Junior's words smarted and from that day onwards I became very sociable and instead of seeing judgement in the eyes of others, I recognised the need people have to make a connection and to share something about themselves. I discovered a world of people I never would have known otherwise. Each interaction I made with a person became an adventure of discovery, each person a lesson in life.  The wealthy, the poor, the powerful and the lonely, all were as full of dreams and doubts as I and each had a unique story to tell, if only I had the ears to hear.

On a coach to Cape Town I began talking to a man everyone was avoiding because he was slurring his speech as if drunk. It turned out that he was recovering from a stroke. He took pains, talking like a toddler who is learning to talk to tell me his life experiences, told me that he had been staying in USA and  the Recession of 2008 had gobbled down the drain all his retirement investments and he had resorted to feeding himself by firing his shotgun into a pond and gathering up the stunned fish that floated to the surface. When he had eaten all the fish that was in the pond and didn't know where to get his next meal he had a stroke and then his nephew and only living relative who stayed in Cape Town had  to travel to USA to collect him and look after him. When we reached our destination and were about to disembark from the coach he grabbed my hand and looked into my eyes with tears in his eyes and said, "Thanks for listening, most people don't bother talking to me or listening to my slurred speech." He didn't have to thank me, the pleasure of listening to him had all been mine because I know that just by listening to other people's life stories I will be helping them to offload their emotional baggage. At one time a hair dresser shared with me the joy of watching the residents of an orphanage leap with joy after receiving a new hairstyle for free from her, the joy and pride that she had as she told me about it  made me happy.

How often most people allow such opportunities to reach out and connect to other people just by listening to what they have to say, pass by. The girl who everyone thinks is homely, the boy with the odd clothes, all those people have stories to tell, as surely as you do and like you they dream that someone is willing to hear. This is what Junior knew all along, she knew that it was best to like people first and ask questions later. See if the light that you shine on others isn't reflected back on you a hundredfold.