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On this rainy morning, I slipped into my faithful parka and baseball cap and turned on the van to warm it up.  My tween and his friend piled in and off we went to school.

On the way, my son said a math joke, Math is the only subject where when someone buys 20 watermelons no one asks why!  Really?  Twenty stinkin’ watermelons??  That’s crazy!

His friend chimed in, It’s so they can cut them up, put them in a tennis ball shooter and shoot them out for target practice! Ha!

All the while, my mind is contemplating another use for 20 watermelons – to sculpt them into pretty fruit baskets and fill them with delicious fruit.

One woman.  Two tweens.  Twenty watermelons.  Three different perspectives.

After dropping them off I drove home smiling at the prospect of what the world would be like if we all listened a little more to those around us instead of just hearing ourselves.  Personally, I never would have questioned why someone needed 20 watermelons in a math problem, nor would I have ever shot them out of a tennis ball shooter for target practice.

These silly guys made me think outside my box this morning and I love it!  (However, I decided not to bore them with my fruit basket idea. :))

Today, I’m going to focus on listening more to others around me and make an intentional effort to see things from a different point of view.

Not only will I never look at a tennis ball shooter the same way again, but I’ll not be able to help myself from questioning why someone needs 20 large fruits when doing a math problem.  But, I also learned more about how these guys think, therefore I learned something new about them – all because I stopped talking and listened by opening my ears to what they had to say.

If this short conversation had such interesting (and amusing) results, just think what could happen if we talked less and listened more in the big stuff of life.  It would rock our world!  I will stop writing now because…I’m listening.  What do you hear?