Dear Anita,

Funny thing is I already have something to report back. Because my tendency is also to analyze. I know it is your tendency to analyze as well, I know this because we have been talking for over a year now, and this is the beauty of our interaction. But I do believe that it also hinders the both of us from having relaxation at times.

Anyway,

left work and took a walk. I sat down outside somewhere to have a cup of tea, as it is finally nice weather here. I did not rush home like I usually do. I wanted some time to myself, not peace and quiet per se as it is a beautiful bustling afternoon in Soho, but time to my own thoughts without anyone else.

Here is what I observed this far, and of course I analyzed, I am not going to judge myself for analyzing right now. I am also not going to judge you for it, because that is the beauty of our emotional intelligence, and perhaps I can work on that one time, so, right now I am grateful that I even took the time to observe.

I noticed that I am kind. I noticed that I am friendly. I noticed that I like to interact with others. I noticed that if someone is sitting next to me and something about them sparked my interest I want to say something. I don’t want to keep this thought to myself, it is natural for me to share my thoughts. This has been a great / appreciated quality of mine over the years, it has allowed me to interact with many people, form great relationships, show compassion, and be more relatable to a wide variety of people than almost anyone I know.In short, I can get along with, relate to, and converse with almost anyone. But, today I am noticing how that keeps me from sitting with myself. Often, instead of listening to my own thoughts I choose to speak. Let’s say I am starting to think about what stresses me out during the day, if someone next to me with a beautiful dress Walks by, I may want to, and say wow I really like your dress I was going to get something like that last week. The girl may exclaim that’s amazing, and maybe we would start conversing for a few minutes. Nice talk with a nice stranger.

What perhaps the couple sitting next to me are tourists from Europe, they are chatting about where to go for dinner, I overhear. I might interrupt and give them a recommendation kindly, they will be very pleased and say thank you, thank you for being such a kind New Yorker and helping us out.

None of this is negative. But do you see. How this takes away from me… and focuses on them../