This week’s post is a little later than usual. Whoops but here it is anyway.

At my work I work within a rotational program and the current placement I am in is at Environmental Health. It is what you think it is, and it also isn’t what you might think it is. But I not going to go into that because that’s not what this post is about.

What this post is about is meetings of the mind. So, at in my placement I am working on an analysis of a 20-year program ran by NSW Health. One of the programs founders who at this point in his life is semi-retired, sticks around to offer his advice and support.

A meeting is held weekly where I give an update on the progress of the work. It usually goes for an hour, but I tend to stay on the call with that mentor that I mentioned; we chat about a range of different things in our conversations after the main meeting.

Recently, he asked if we could have lunch at some point, seeing as we have only ever interacted via group video calls. I saw no problem with that, so I scheduled our lunch for last Friday.

We had spoken quite a bit before, so I was confident in my assessment of his character. But over the course of the lunch, especially since it was a casual informal meeting, we kinda just got to talk shit about anything we wanted.

At one point during the meal, which was at this great Vietnamese restaurant; he asked me “why do you think we are here?”. Me not thinking, just replied “To get food”. He agreed but added, it is always rare to find a someone with a mind.

That’s when it me, this was about a coming together of two people’s values and beliefs and each one strengthening the other. He is much older and has experienced more in life than I have, that means he can offer great insight into things, both personal and work related. Having that kind of friendship is important in life I believe. Finding people, ideally someone older than yourself, who has experienced much and learned plenty, can be a great teacher and mentor even if it is not structured within a lesson format.

Thinking through many of the friendships I have made in the past years on my own journey, most of them fit that mould. These quality people and minds are something that have helped to shape and sharpen me as a person.

So, I guess my message for this week would be, if you come across a sage, have lunch with them, you might learn a lot about yourself in the process.

Thank you to all my Hedites, constantly supporting the work I do here, you’re all amazing.