iExamen 2

Lucy Fanto
Understanding Lit
Professor Ellis

For the iExamen 2, I spent the day working as a waitress at my new job, while attempting to speak only kind, true and usefully. It was difficult working with customers at the restaurant, who were mostly elderly men and women, and to stay patient and positive. I quickly discovered that the best way to handle this process was to take time to think out my responses to people before I said them out loud. Although I knew this was going to be a challenge when I began Sunday morning, I was not prepared for what I was going to experience.

As a person who does not normally identify as a morning person, waking up for work at 8am was not ideal. My roommates would also agree that I am not the most friendly person in the morning. When I first entered the restaurant, it was easy to start the day greeting customers and giving them their meals while talking in a kind, true and useful manner. I was able to stay strict with my comments and continue with the process of seeing what would occur later in the day. As the afternoon went on, and the lunch rush hit, I felt my tiredness and sassiness increase. It became difficult to take a rude customers order and not react and make a negative comment to my coworkers. My patience continued to be tested. One customer not only complained about, "The poor, slow service", but argued with me about the price of her meal. I felt it harder and harder to speak kindly and noticed myself to talk less and less to avoid saying something that was not kind, true or useful. At this point in the day, after grabbing my third cup of coffee to get me through the rest of my shift, I realized the negativity that commonly comes spilling out of people's mouths without even noticing it. We are all so quick to make negative comments to and about one another without even analyzing the consequences.

Once I came to this conclusion, I worked very hard to fulfill the exercise to the best of my ability. I went out of my way to be pleasant with customers and my workers, and even specifically made a connection with an elderly woman who was sitting by herself. As I introduced myself and asked if she needed assistance, she informed me of some reason deaths that had occurred in her life, including the death of her husband, which is why she was sitting alone. She continued to inform me about her beliefs in death and explained that the loss of a person is never really real because their souls are always around us. She explained that she even feels like she can talk to those who have passed, as well as receive messages from them which comfort her throughout the day. Finally she informed me of the importance of a well rounded education, a full study of the arts, and the understanding of the body, mind and soul theory. I never felt more touched then after I left the conversation with this unknown woman. I didn't need to know anything about her, to have made a meaningful connection with her. I soon saw how powerful true, kind and useful words were and what they did for others. I was not only left with great life lessons from her experience but I felt as if I can live everyday from now on as a better person, from what she spoke about and by fully understanding this exercise of how to communicate with others.

Later in the day after returning home from work, I explained the task to my mom over text. She not only wanted to thank the teacher who assigned the assignment but also had much doubt that I could accomplish the task with my, "sass filled attitude", that would normally kick in on Sundays. It was hard not to disagree with my mom, but I did find it easier to be kind, true and useful over text rather than face to face. The reason for this was due to the ability to think out my responses to people in advance while not having to deal with the face to face confrontation that is difficult in person. My mom's text about my attitude also gave me a strong motivation to continue this experience after the assignment was due. It was a good challenge to make a real true connection with someone by only saying things that would better yourself and your connection with that person.

This experience completely changed my mindset on the way I communicate with my peers and how it affects them. I learned that when you speak with purpose, it is not only beneficial for you but it can make a person's day or help them through a bad time. It helped me to understand that we should all talk in this way, not just for a homework assignment and the results could make an even bigger impact on us then we even expected.