Are you too hard to impress?

When I was in grad school I used to have an attitude about meeting people. It probably stemmed from feeling inferior, but it was a kind of "guilty until proven impressive" one. Until you show me you're impressive, I'll assume you're not.

This didn't work for me. It kept me from appreciating, connecting to, and learning from people. Now I actively look for things to be impressed about. Not the generic "That's great!" type, but genuine respect of people and their accomplishments. My thought is that we don't acknowledge these enough, and - if you look around your personal and professional circles - many people really are impressive!

So my tip is, Come prepared to be impressed. Show active interest in others. If you explore deeply enough, I bet you find something amazing in there.

What do you think? Are you too hard to impress? Are most people unimpressive? Does it change the nature of a relationship to be impressed? Do you feel you need to be acknowledged as impressive in return?