Humanity (Not) Lost
The pending boom of the notion of community
Prefer to listen? Click play on the audio track above to hear SVB read you these words.
And don’t forget your Reflection Points at the end.
“The notion of community…doesn’t require a village.”
A LARGE PART of my job involves listening to clients. Not only in terms of the burden they’re carrying and the things they’d like to improve, but their complaints – and suggestions – about my business.
So when I received a message last week from a long-term client asking if I would be at the facility later that evening when she came in for a workout, my hospitality persona replied in the affirmative.
Inside, however, I braced to receive an unsolicited piece of feedback.
As I went about my day, my brain quickly shifted to other things, mainly annoying, noisy, hey-you-need-to-address-this tasks that kept pulling me in every direction. I struggled to find any momentum in my work, the whiplash of my attention leaving me exhausted and irritated.
And the most frustrating part was that it interfered with my weekly writing session, when I was scheduled to draft this post – our Sunday practice on the notion of humanity.
By the time I was packing up to head home, I was essentially considering the day a loss, one of those where you never stop moving yet can’t articulate anything you actually accomplished. But then as I washed my hands in the locker room, judging my tired eyes, I heard the voice of the client who had asked to see me emerging from the office.
Silly me for thinking the day was done.
Shaking the fatigue from my face, I entered the room, smile on, ready to absorb. Yet when I turned the corner, the client was standing there with a smile of her own, holding a squared-shape piece of canvas at her chest.
“Here, I wanted to give this to you,” she said, as she turned around the object and presented it to me.
My hands reached for it as I processed the words – but moreover, the fact that this woman saw them and thought of me.
I was speechless. By her kindness. By the awareness that she had remembered that I had shared this quote as one that deeply resonates with me before.
Yet what was really choking my voice were my own assumptions.
That when this woman asked to connect that my first thought was that it couldn’t be about anything good.
As I drove away from the gym that night, the sun was pitched at the most perfect angle, casting a strawberry blonde backdrop on an end-of-winter day. It mirrored the warmth I felt in my chest, comforted by the the words on that canvas.
That we really are just walking each other home.
Organically, on the commute, my mind wandered. The result was scrapping what I had originally planned for this post, because to me, this story really speaks for itself.
About the notion of community and how it doesn’t require a village. Or even communal gatherings or shared rituals or a list of rules defining right from wrong.
But that it’s found – and felt – in the small interactions. The touch points. The ways we choose to say to someone “keep going.”
Which instantaneously makes them feel a little less alone.
No, community is not grand nor is it some club where you’re either in or out; quite the contrary, it’s a way of living that allows – and encourages – you to show up exactly how you are.
And as the world evolves rapidly, with the current day already looking/feeling/vibing differently than the day that came before, it will be this type of connection that will keep us tethered.
That will remind us what it means to have a soul.
Because we can automate and optimize ad nauseum, but that will never change that we, as humans, have the greatest superpower of all.
And that is the capacity to feel.
And to make others do so in return.
***
Coming Up Next Week: A Note to Readers
Changes coming to Lighten Up.
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Write them, think them, talk them. There is no right or wrong way to navigate these prompts. Except to go into them without judgment or expectation. Be curious. And honest. Have the courage to sit with yourself.
When is the last time you completed a random act of kindness? Not something tied to an event or milestone (i.e. a birthday) but rather a card dropped in the mail or an unsolicited favor?
In the week ahead, if you find yourself thinking something complimentary about someone other – maybe about their appearance or simply the fact that they thought to make the bed – tell them. It doesn’t need to be a lengthy exchange (heck, it can even be a text!). The goal is simply to acknowledge.
Let’s talk eye contact – because it’s a dying art! In the week ahead, see if you can look the cashier, the server, whomever, in the eye. While you’re at it, try giving them a smile. No need for in-depth conversation. Again, just acknowledge.