The Red Lunch Box

My Red Lunch Box

Do you remember going to school on your first couple of days. How nervous you felt, mostly about?being accepted. If you would find people that you liked and people that liked you. How you would integrate.

If you found someone that connected with you on that first day how it changed your world. How excited you were coming home and saying what a great day it was and wanting to go back the next day. The opposite, if you stood by yourself and didn’t connect with people how you felt ostracized and different. You then went home feeling deflated and not wanting to attend school. Ultimately unfortunately as you lost confidence in yourself you were picked on and bullied and further withdrew.?

Has anything really changed. The first day at a new company, the first meeting with a client, that first date. People say first meetings matter and I don’t disagree if you are only going to have one meeting. I personally am not good at meeting new people. I was always different from my height, my ability to say the wrong thing at the right time or the right thing to say at the wrong time. I find networking and relationships tiring and difficult. The social norms don’t make sense to me. The constant evaluation and the lazy thinking of putting people in boxes or even worse who is useful and who isn’t.?

I was an awkward kid who was twice the size of everyone else so was treated differently and expected more of a nine year old body with a five year old brain and birthdate. Uncoordinated as every couple of months I had a growth spurt that put that item a cm closer than it was the night before and a brain that hadn’t adjusted. A kid that was abused at home and had very little confidence, both parents working and had no money for anything.

I had a little red lunch box my nan and gramps had given me. Inside it I got a jam sandwich or peanut butter one thrown together in the mad rush of getting kids out the door before mum went to her job as a receptionist trying not to wake my step father who worked shift work knowing what the outcome was if anyone woke him. If I was exceptionally lucky we got a slice of devondale roll sliced between two pieces of white bread.

We had moved from a very rough part of town to the worst house in a middling part of town so I didn’t have anyone I knew on my first day that I went to any of the daycare in the area. I was dropped off at the gate as Mum had to get to work.

My first friend at school was a kid. At lunch time we went outside and I opened my lunch box. He had a red lunch box and I had a red plastic lunch box. As he opened his bag and pulled it out I sat down and pulled out mine. He moved over closer and asked what I had. I pulled out two jam sandwiches. He had a lettuce and ham sandwich, a cake and a small bag of chips. We ended up swapping lunches and talking. I don’t remember much more, but each day we had lunch together and soon we had a couple of other kids with red lunch boxes sharing and swapping our lunches for the things we didn't like for things we did or never got.

Doug loved Jam sandwiches because he never got them at home. We came to realise who had the quick rushed mum lunches and the more prepared stay at home mum lunches and it was normal for a full swap from one to the other.?

When my son started daycare they did an orientation day and when I went in I saw all the boys wearing Star wars and Marvel shirts so went to Big W and bought half a dozen. When I walked him to the door he was wearing a Thor Shirt that I had seen on one of the other boys wearing something similar.

At the end of the day he ran up with a group of three other boys wearing superhero shirts they had found in their red lunch box.

When meeting people try to find the things you have in common. The red lunch box and then inside that lunch box what other connections do you have that are similar but different so that you can be helpful to one another. Finding those gives people a reason to connect to you. We all have things we have everyday that are a treat to others. Find them and work with one another.

Remember the feeling of standing alone not knowing anyone and the amazing feeling when someone came over and asked you to join them in a game or a conversation. We all know what it is like to be bullied or not to be picked. It drives our bad behavior if we think we are not liked. Step in you never know what they have inside their lunchbox and they will always remember the person that opened theirs first.

?It is all just common sense.