Learning From Others In New Zealand

Submitted by Nonso Iwu on the 2019 winter session study abroad program in New Zealand sponsored by the Department of Computer and Information Sciences…

“What should I be gaining from this?” is what I would always ask myself during my time in New Zealand. The theme of this last blog post is about the privilege of learning. Often times, I hear that to go through any new experience in life is an opportunity to learn a new lesson. This may be true, however, I believe that it is also required of me to be open to receiving this lesson. With this, I was able to pull a lesson from most of my encounters. Being in New Zealand has taught me that there is a ‘something’ that can be drawn from even the most mundane activities.

During this program, I met many people; people that I did not have to know. People whose success/failure were inconsequential to mine, people who I would never see again, people who were different from me, and others of that nature. Despite those qualities, those people cared enough to pour their experiences into me and provide me with more wisdom than I came with. Christine, our dutiful cafeteria assistant, took it upon herself to give me a map of the northern island of New Zealand, just so I would not get lost on a weekend trip. Nick, an elderly citizen of New Zealand who was riding the bus at the same time I was, shared his stories about his brother and son with me. He provided his wisdom on the simplicity of life, saying that “it does not matter how much your job pays, it just matters if you are passionate about it”.

Many more of these occurrences happened throughout the program. There was so much knowledge hiding behind the faces of those around me and all it took to unlock was simply to listen. Another memorable individual on this program was an ordinary looking old man on my flight from Houston to Philadelphia. I did not have to talk to him, but in the spirit of listening and learning, I decided to open up and not sleep the entire flight away. We got into a magnificent conversation about the state of America, our specific perspectives on it, then a conversation about our pasts and about our prospective futures. In the middle of it, he hands me a burgundy and gold pen saying that I should “use it when I sign my first property documents”. I examined the pen, and it read “George Foreman”. I did not think anything of it for five minutes, but I felt compelled to ask his identity. Although it was not the famous boxer himself, I happened to be sitting next to his brother, Roy Foreman, that entire flight.

After that, he hands me a shirt and his card and tells me to call him to talk sometime. Just from a conversation with a stranger, I learned from his experiences and gained a valuable new connection. There is a lesson that can be learned from everyone around us. They have the ability to touch our lives in the finite amount of time that we have with them. They eventually leave us, continuing the life that they have described to you and carrying those experiences with them. Their rivers of understanding become available at different moments of our lives and it is our choice to channel their understanding into the river that flows from within ourselves.

To be given the opportunity to learn from others and not take it, is a disservice to not only ourselves, but also to those that feed from us as well.

George Foreman pen on my notebook, flying over Pennsylvania – this is the pen that I received from Roy Foreman.