Episode description
Hi! I hope you're doing well at work or at school now. By the way, how long do you tend to stay at home these days? I'm a bit curious about that since I've been staying at home for quite a while now because I'm working from home. I believe you have experienced it once when the pandemic started. You know what. This lets me have more time for other things like being aware of the people around me.
Before, I just keep walking past my neighbors since I am running out of time for work. Almost all the time. But now, strolling with my dog every morning made me see and be aware about the people around me. I was even able to pick two extreme neighbors I have. Yes. Extreme. One is positively extreme and the other is the opposite. Let me tell you why.
Every meal (breakfast, lunch, dinner, and even snack) my neighbor always brings food that she cooked. She even gave us raw fish to cook and told us not to give them any after we cook it since it's the same fish she bought. I'm so grateful to have this kind of neighbor. Though I don't want to abuse her kindness I always show my appreciation by accepting it and doing the same thing to the other people in our neighborhood. She shows the real meaning of neighborhood and serves as a good example to others. She is extremely generous.
On the other hand and literally other side of my house. I have this one neighbor who always do the other way around. Let me give you a specific situation. Every time she comes to our house she never leaves empty handed or with an empty stomach.. Why? Because it's her strategy. She always makes sure to come to our house during meal time or whenever there's an occasion where a feast is expected. She will start building a rapport or making a close connection to you by telling you stories then later on she'll simply get food or start eating though you haven't asked her to. She's extremely greedy and hungry.. I guess.
But this just showed me that wherever we are, we can't choose the people we are going to be with. You can't choose who is going to be your neighbor, colleague, or classmate nor what they should be, instead you can only choose how you are going to deal with them. Because you are only in control of your own life not of others.
Now let me know what kind of neighbors you have and who are the extreme ones? Tell me what makes them extreme.
This time we are going to have a different challenge. Instead of just simply using a word I challenge you to use the word "connection" in it's other formation (could be as a noun, verb, adverb or adjective) Then use the phrasal verb DROP BY which means make a casual or informal visit to a person or place. For example, my neighbor tend to By the way, you might have heard dogs in my background. That's my neighbors dog and that's one of the annoying thing about them but as I mentioned earlier. I have to learn how to deal with them and so you should as well.