Each year at this time, as the clock strikes midnight and the door opens with a new year waiting on the other side, we often wonder how much life will change in the months ahead. One thing, at least for me, is the superficiality of various social and business related gatherings, the masks people wear, the lack of genuine listening, all which highlight a common truth in that true and honest connections can be difficult to find in settings such as these.
Let’s face it, we all have a desire for empathy, for someone to ask, “are you okay” or “do you need anything”, both which speaks to a fundamental human need for validation and support.
We have all been forced into environments which have drained us, most exhausting and yielding no real fulfillment; we need to prioritize such spaces where we can be our genuine self, being part of an organization, a community, where people accept us for who we are, rather than what we project. It makes all the difference when one opts not to follow a crowd to avoid getting lost in one.
Somewhere along the way, we often stop caring, we simply stop asking and that’s likely why it feels that we’re drifting apart from established connections, or groups, in our lives; likely a textbook defense mechanism. We still meet with those considered friends, we talk, but conversations skim the surface and we chat about the mundane things, the weather, headlines, about things that really don’t touch what we’re really about. We talk so that we don’t have to say the real things, a quiet kind of sadness, the kind that doesn’t shout but just lingers in our background like a dull hum.
And maybe that’s the quiet tragedy, so many of us carrying invisible baggage, passing each other in various situations, smiling in photos, laughing at jokes, while inside we’re hoping someone will notice without us having to say a word.
From The Writer’s Workshop: Write a post in exactly nine (9) sentences.
