Pick a friend of yours. Any friend. Now as accurately as you can, try to describe an average day of his or her life. What’s his or her school day like? What extra-curricular activities is he or she doing? What does he or she do at home? The more you think about it, the more you realize how little you actually know about your friend. Sure, you can fumble through a loose outline of what he or she kind of does, but you probably don’t know the details.

We, as a society, have a bad habit of self-centralism, a mean streak of selfishness. In fact, we are so conceited that many of us don’t even realize it. There’s a reason we’re not able to precisely describe the lives of our peers, and that is simply because we don’t pay enough attention. So listen up.

A large part of the problem stems from our inability to listen to others. Our brains tend to switch off when the topic at hand doesn’t concern our own personal interests. It becomes an automatic reflex. People spend the whole conversation thinking about what they’re going to say next, and so miss everything the other people say. They then come off as uncompassionate. But, I mean, maybe they actually are.

On top of that, our daily conversations are mostly superficial small talk anyway. We chat about the game last night or what we did in class that day. But what about the personal stuff? I know all about what my friend thought of the futility of the crazy fractions in problem number seven on his math test, but nothing about his overall battle with stress or his satisfaction or dissatisfaction with his day.

There’s an interesting phenomenon happening. You don’t particularly care what other people are doing, but you expect people to care about your pursuits, even though the exact reverse is happening with them. These factors together create interactions of people spewing out unnecessary junk that no one pays attention to.

But maybe you think you do care. Maybe you think that your relationships are meaningful and you’re completely up to date with your friends’ lives. But you’re not out of the woods yet. Your ignorance can extend beyond your close friends.

It’s important to keep in mind that you hang around people very similar to yourself. That’s why people become friends in the first place and groups start to form. This can leave you with a warped and single-minded perception of the world around you. For me, as I write this, looking around at the kids on the newspaper staff wouldn’t yield an accurate sample of the school. Neither would the basketball team or the drama club.

So what’s the message? People should make an honest effort to pay attention to their peers’ work. Or just pay attention in general. If you train your ears to only listen to the things that affect you, then you end up missing out on a lot of real human connection. So go talk to that quiet kid in the back of your math class. Ask your friend how their club is doing. Take an interest in other people’s lives, and maybe, just maybe, they will take an interest in yours.