Questions

Last night Alyssa was reading Real Simple and saw an article that listed questions to ask to get to know someone: What are you most proud of? What’s the most difficult thing you have ever been through with your family? What are some of your strongest character traits? What’s the best trip you’ve ever taken?

The questions quite spontaneously created a great time of mutual exploration for us. I learned that the most difficult thing Alyssa has been through with her family happened relatively recently. I learned that her self-conception is that compassion is one of her strongest character traits, and I agree with that conception. I would add empathy. I simply don’t know many people who naturally care as much as Alyssa does about people in general. I learned, simply by being asked, that I think one of my strongest traits is an ability to connect one on one with people. I hadn’t really thought this about myself until Alyssa asked me about it. I feel like people have an easy time talking to me. There are probably loads of exceptions.

We also talked about what traits or habits we have that we would like to change. Alyssa said judgmentalism about herself. I said I can be a bully sometimes and just plain mean. Alyssa said she wished I didn’t bite my fingernails. But it was in a spirit of casual observation, so somehow it was okay that we were being self-critical and even critical of one another.