The Automatic Mentor: Why “people watching” might change your life

This is a guest post by Kyle Reed from Thoughts About Nothing. If you’re interested in guest posting for bondChristian, let me know.

“People watching” is probably one of my favorite hobbies. You know, sitting there, making comments in your head as people walk by you. It provides hours of entertainment that is just good, clean, family fun (well, that is dependent on who you are observing, I guess).

Have you ever been people watching and one of your “peeps” (that is what I call them) spots you? You make eye contact and then quickly look in the other direction, hoping that they didn’t spot you looking at them. That is when people watching turns from fun to just plain awkward.

Take shopping for example

I was doing some last minute Christmas shopping last year. Standing in line waiting to pay for my gifts, I started my usual routine of scanning the crowd. The lady in the next checkout lane was mid scan when our eyes met. We both glanced away, and I kept my head down the rest of the time until I could get out of there.

As I was thinking back to that moment, I realized something:

People “people watch” me (say that five times fast).

Yes, people actually watch what I do, taking in the way I walk or what I am wearing. I have been people watched.

We watch others but assume no one watches us – as if we blend into those fake bushes behind the park bench at the mall. This idea that the world is a stage and the characters are on display for us to watch is not only narcissistic, it is false.

The common trend today is for people to people watch others to make themselves feel better. Whether watching people on television, reading magazines, or catching up on the daily gossip from friends, we watch people in order to feel good about ourselves.

Take The Truman Show for example

One of my favorite movies is The Truman Show. It’s about a guy named Truman (played by Jim Carey) who is on a literal “reality” TV show, featuring his life for millions to watch.

Have you ever thought of what it would be like if you were on The Truman Show? Thousands of cameras following you around, microphones picking up every word you say, and millions of people watching your every move. How would things be different? Would you change anything? I know I would be a completely different person.

Living on display would bring so much pressure that I would have an identity crisis much like Truman did in The Truman Show. This haunting fact that someone might be observing me might make me so self aware that I could not even go out in public. That is the interesting thing about all of this: we change who we are because people are watching.

What this means for mentoring

I have a lot of conversations with people about mentoring others. People often say that don’t mentor because no one would want to learn from them. I usually spoil those thoughts by telling them that people are watching and learning.

You are a mentor whether you like it or not. People are watching, observing, and learning from what you are doing. Is that a scary thought for you? I know it can be for me. It can be scary, or it can be the very thing you and I need to hear to know that we can make a difference.

Serving Suggestion:

(1) If you knew someone were following you around with a camera, studying your every move, what’s the #1 habit you’d change. Start with that. Because people are people watching you.

(2) Visit Kyle’s Mentor Me Project. He has this crazy dream that one day everyone will be connected and mentored. Kyle also blogs at Thoughts About Nothing.