The "Making A Difference" Story

It was a an ordinary day.  Just opened the cover of my November 2023 Reader's Digest and began reading.  Story after story after story; all interesting...but not just the right one for a story that I can share with you on my blog.  Finally came upon a story titled "Life Advice From 1,000 Strangers."  Story was about a young man named Imran Nuri who was faced with a quarter-life crisis and traveled the country seeking guidance!  Story began with...From the time he learned to walk, Imran Nuri heard from his parents time and time again 'You must strive to be the best at everything' after all, it was that thinking that led them to realize their American dream after moving to the United States from India in 1991.  Nuri graduated from Ohio State with honors, then moved to Chicago where he landed a prime job as a national marketing director for a company connecting health-care professionals with hospitals.  Great job, but at the age of 24 he quit his job, emptied his savings account and returned to Columbus to fine-tune an outrageous plan he'd been hatching.  He was going to drive his 2018 Toyota Camry to every state in the lower 48 on a 100-day trip to find 1,000 strangers and ask them to share one thing they wish they'd known when they were younger.  Nuri was hoping for answers that might help him navigate the rest of his life.  He had no set plans except sleeping in rest stops, showering in gyms that accepted his gym membership and buy cheap food.  His parents were mortified!  It was too dangerous for their only child.  So...they proposed to enroll him in graduate school to get an MBA.  No Way!!  He remembered all their stories from the 20s and 30s in India and wanted none of it!  "I am young, healthy and unmarried and have no mortgage.  Wouldn't you have wanted this chance when you were my age?" he asked them.  They were sold!  On May 9, 2022, the night before he was to depart, he couldn't sleep.  There was something that no one else knew about him that he was struggling with that evening.  Imran Nuri didn't like taking with strangers!!  He just couldn't muster the nerve.  This upcoming trip depended on his ability to get strangers to talk with him about ideas more intimate than idle chitchat about their life's experiences.  Than he thought..."I'm about to do something really crazy, and I think it's going to be really transformative.  I wonder whom I might be when I return."  Well...he followed his map that took him north into Michigan than east to Pennsylvania, then north again to Maine, before heading all the way south to Florida.  From there he drove west to the California coast and then headed north to Washington where he took a right turn that would take him home.  He'd zigzag to make sure he visited every state along the way.  Can you imagine that at 24 years of age?  Nuri wanted only the names of those he would chat with along the way, but not their occupation so he wouldn't pre-judge them.  He didn't want a résume, just unfiltered advice that might help guide him on his personal journey.  He had a 50-year-old twin-lens camera and a recording device to document each person with whom he shared time.  He made sure to take all his photos in black and white so as not to make one look more important than the next.  His first stop was a scraggly guy who limped past him and just stared at him.  He thought perhaps he should just pass by, but then that wasn't his mission.  "I thought I was going to be killed.  I'd chosen the worst possible person for my first conversation."  He was tempted to get back in the car and drive on, but he walked up to the man and introduced himself and gave the same talk he had planned for everyone he stopped.  "I'm driving around the country to talk to 1,000 strangers.  I'm asking them for pieces of advice about things they wish they knew earlier.  If you've got a couple of minutes, I'd love to hear what you think."  The old guy, after a long period of looking at Nuri, said, "I wish I would have spent more time with my parents," he said.  With that the ice was broken for the rest of his trip!  They talked for quite some time and than Nuri thanked the man and headed on to his next stop.   Many days he would eat at roadside stands and sleep in his car.  Over the next few months he approached people of all ages and races.  Some kept walking, some said they had no time to talk, but many were happy to open up!  When he arrived in some locations he wondered how he would be received, due to his brown skin color.  He had experienced moments of subtle racism while growing up, but only experienced a few hard looks along his latest travels.  Some strangers told him they had never met anyone of Indian heritage.  Perhaps his longest conversation was with a woman in a mortised wheelchair who was moving across a shopping center parking lot in Wilmington, North Carolina.  She had a hugh smile on her face when she began telling Nuri that she had worked her butt off her whole life...than she got sick and ended in the wheelchair.  She advised him to "Have fun, enjoy life and make a family!"  In Colorado Springs Nuri encountered a guy who would have at one time intimidated him.  He was a giant with a big beard and a body covered with tattoos.  "Life is about the human connection," the man told Nuri.  Nuri asked about his tattoos and learned that the man had stage 4 terminal cancer.  He was getting matching tattoos with everyone in his hometown.  Touched...Nuri asked if he would get a matching tattoo with him.  The bearded giant gladly agreed and the two of them had matching tattoos of a  roll of film.  It was Nuri's first tattoo!  His trip progressed through Washington, Wyoming, Colorado, Montana as the trip wore on.  On the last 15 minutes on the last day, August 6, 2022--88 days from when he started, Nuri turned down the quiet street that led to his childhood home.  It was a route he'd taken thousands of times.  But now, he was traveling with the spirits of the 1,300 people he'd talked to on his 15,000-mile trip.  He said, "I felt every emotion at once,"  Accomplishment, joy, relief, ecstasy, exhaustion, pride, amazement and disbelief.  Three months earlier he wondered who he might be when he returns.  He knew now!  He was a better man!!  And it was at that point in time that Imran Nuri began to cry.  Today, Nuri is back in Chicago, employed as a senior marketing director for a new company.  He's not the man he once was.  He seeks answers to questions, which leads to more questions and more answers, a cycle that provides not certainty, but meaning.  He says he will continue to search and learn.  His journey taught him that life isn't to be talked about, but to be lived in all its messy beauty.  Joy and sorrow, passion and regret, confidence and doubt, success and failure.  He hopes that strangers know that they made a difference, that he honors their advice and is grateful for their gifts, which he will draw on for the rest of his life.  And...as for me, well it was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.