Last week I was in Southern California. I had volunteered to drive my daughter’s car from our home in Dallas to Los Angeles so she would have it for commuting to and from school. She is getting a physical therapy degree and had been on a clinical rotation in Dallas for the summer. She didn’t have time between the end of the rotation and start of school to drive back. Since I had client work in Los Angeles, I agreed to drive west with the car and fly home after my work. The client work got rescheduled to October, but I already had my flight and the time blocked, so I turned my parental good deed into a road trip and rewarded myself with a day off in Santa Monica.
A week before my road trip, Rochelle, a friend that I hadn’t seen in over 30 years sent me a message through Facebook. After a few e-mail exchanges, I discovered that she lived near the hotel in Santa Monica where I’d be staying and we made plans to meet for breakfast before my flight back to Dallas.
I had several days and about 1,400 miles to try and remember when I last saw Rochelle and to think about what I most wanted to know about her life since then. Apart from class reunions, we rarely get a chance to skip ahead on a relationship to see what you still recognize about one another. It’s like finding yourself in front of a current episode of a TV series you stopped watching after season one. What will be surprising and what will be familiar? “You don’t go backpacking anymore?” she might wonder aloud. “You still eat too fast I see.”
Amidst all this over-thinking, I came to an insight. I know it counts as an insight because it revealed something that both surprised me and became obvious the moment I recognized what I had previously failed to notice. I’ll share the insight with you, but first the experiment.
Step 1: Think about someone from your past that knew you well. Someone from a different era of your life. Perhaps someone from a time when you imagined your life turning out differently than it has.
Step 2: Imagine that you only get to ask them one question. The purpose of the question is to re-establish the rapport you once shared. You are not trying to get caught up on the activities and events you’ve missed; that’s what Facebook is for. You want a question that when answered honestly will disclose how your friend feels about their current situation and perhaps about the future. A provocative question that your friend will want to answer truthfully and completely and in so doing may come to realize something that they have not been paying attention to.
Don’t go to step 3 until you have a question in mind
Step 3: Now, imagine your friend posing that question to you.
Here’s the question I imagined that I would ask Rochelle, “What are the most satisfying aspects of your life these days and what needs remain unfulfilled?” I didn’t actually pose this question; I’m not a complete social nitwit. I wanted to reminisce, not conduct research or therapy. Most of our conversation was about our kids and our spouses, and most of the questions started with, “Do you remember…?”
In a moment of clarity that came to me somewhere between Albuquerque and Flagstaff, I realized that I was projecting my inner critic onto the Rochelle I anticipated meeting. When you imagine seeing someone you haven’t been in contact with for over 30 years, you are also imagining the earlier version of that person encountering the current version of you. The question I had crafted was designed for me, not for her. My 60-year-old self wanted to get reacquainted with my 25-year-old self. My 60-year-old self wanted to be reassured and refocused.
What was it like when I asked you to imagine posing to yourself the question you designed for a long lost friend?