Be curious, not judgmental.

Ted Lassso (quoting Walt Whitman)

There must be a pony around here somewhere . . .

In 1988 I took a job waiting tables in the second store in the Mimi’s Cafe restaurant chain.  For those of you unfamiliar with Mimi’s, it’s a concept duplicating a French square, and caters to the older customer.

I can’t tell you how much that job sucked.  I would run like a French Garçon getting extra free bread, filling perpetually empty water glasses, and relaying unending substitutions to a bitter kitchen staff, all for a 10% tip, if I was lucky.

To make matters worse, the Host of the restaurant was an 18 year old kid named Randy who was the son of one of the partners.

The Host is the key person in charge of seating any restaurant and they determine the flow of the service and the quality of the experience for both the guest and the server.  By seating just one table at a time in each section, the server will have time to do the initial drink order, deliver the drinks, take the food order and get it in to the kitchen before another table is sat in their section.  This allows time for the server to adequately service each table without being rushed or getting ’in the weeds’.

Unfortunately Randy didn’t prescribe to this format and he would simply seat each section in full before moving to the next section.  To remind you, Randy was the son of one of the partners.  Randy wasn’t getting fired anytime soon.

One night Randy sat my whole section and the final table was a pair of elderly women whose service was going to suffer from Randy’s lack of protocol.  I was in the weeds from the start, and these two old ladies were not going to be happy.  It was clear I wasn’t going to make any money on this elderly deuce and I contemplated making the table my last priority to focus on my bigger tables that would tip more.

I don’t remember why, but in a moment of uncharacteristic clarity, I decided not to be angry and annoyed and treat these women to great service despite my anticipation of a 3% tip.

In the end, it was a decision I would never regret, and it changed my life.

The two old ladies were actually quite understanding and as I listened to them chat my curiosity was sparked. They spoke in a distinct german accent, though the daughter, probably in her 50’s at the time, had less of one and spoke quite clear english.  I asked a few questions about their visit and discovered they were Mother and daughter and they apparently met for brunch every week.  They were talking about their family and generally having a pretty good time. The mother had grown up in Germany and she brought her daughter to the United States to start over after the death of her husband.  She had gotten remarried and had two other children who lived in New York.

I presented the check and as the mother grabbed the check the daughter reached out to protest.  It was at this moment I saw both of their bare arms and the crudely tattooed numbers on each of their thin inner wrists.

Had I not let my curiosity take hold, I would have never known of the incredible story these two women shared together.  Had I been cruel and ignored them, I would have never known how close to human greatness I was, and I would have never known how close I came to learning a priceless life lesson.  Judging the situation to be unimportant, without meaning, I would have cheated myself out of one of the most powerful experiences of my life.

At Mimi’s that night I felt the earth move knowing that 44 years previous a young mother in a living hell somehow protected her young child from the death camp’s nightmarish slaughter.  My God, what they must have seen and experienced, together.  My annoyance with the old ladies, Mimi’s paltry tips, even Randy disappeared.  I felt . . . lucky.

One of my teachers once told me, “If you judge a moment to be bad, you rob it of it’s opportunity to be good.”   To be curious is to be open to the gifts that the universe has for you.  Opportunities are all around us, but if you are not curious about the world and the people around you, you will miss them.  When you’re curious, you wonder about the amazing things that you have yet to discover, and more importantly, you attract them.  If you just walk by the world with your heart closed and your head down, you’ll miss the opportunities, the chances, and the people who have the power to change your life.