[immoceefe]

I remember where I took one Landmark course in the Wisdom Division where the theme of the course was bluntly stated as 'talk to strangers'. I really saw that if all I did was have the same conversations with the same people over and over again, my life would always be exactly the same.

I've come up with a related mantra involving what it sometimes takes to break the ice with strangers: embrace the awkwardness; embrace the uncertainty.

If what I'm really attached to is having comfortable conversations, I'm just going to end up having more of those same conversations with the same people. If I'm willing to accept and even embrace the awkwardness that sometimes accompanies a new conversation, with a new person or on a new topic, then it gets much easier. Only in the uncertainty of a new conversation is something new actually possible. The end result of this is that a shy person like me got involved in politics, and a shy person like me asked out a cosmopolitan woman who became my wife.