No this is not a post about the financial crisis. I, by no means, know enough about economics to write a post about that. What I want to talk about it is a cheeseburger. Well that, and some other things.
Last night, after a long day of work, (both at my regular job and an event I was paid to do) I brought home In N Out for my husband and I. I asked him how he liked his burger and he responded with, "I appreciate you bringing in food. But I only wanted a cheeseburger, not a Double Double." (He was sweet and kind about it.) A small mistake on my part and not a big deal in the long run, but it hurt me last night to hear that. What made it worse is that I went to bed not knowing why it hurt. But as I lay there trying to figure out why such a small thing had hurt me so much, I looked back over my day.
Work had gone well by all accounts, except for one of my bosses. Throughout the day, he had made quite a few snarky comments in regards to things I had asked about. I got to the point where I just stayed to myself yesterday because his mood and attitude was effecting mine.
Then after work, I attended a wedding in which I had been hired to MC the evening. All went well except at one point in the evening, after some things had been changed around, I had announced dessert would be served shortly. What I had forgotten was there was another course yet to be had. A member of the couples family came up to me and snapped at me about it. I quickly corrected things, but spent the rest of the night a little on guard.
But then I looked back over the week and I realized that many of my interactions with people had been fairly negative this week. From grumpy customers who were mad at themselves for losing an item to the people I work with whose interpersonal conflict spilled through the rest of the office. This week had not been filled with warm fuzzies and affirmations. This week had been filled with the things that drain a person. And so of course at the end of the week, it had drained me. I fell asleep last night being in the red, emotionally overdrawn from the interactions of the week. Even though there was nothing I could do about it last night, being aware of why I was feeling so hurt about a cheeseburger, made me feel better.
Here's the thing about a lot people though, they don't know that they are walking around in the red. They are sensitive or hurt or angry day after day and week after week and they don't know why. They interact with the same people in the same places who tear them down a little more each day and they have no idea how to change that. There is often no one in their daily life who thanks them or affirms them.
I'm not saying that we all need to walk around hugging every person just in case they might be hurting. (That could be awkward.) But I am calling for a genuine response to people. If we ask some one how their day is, we need to actually listen to their response and not use the question as a formality. Because whether you want to admit it, we all want people to listen to us. If we want people to listen to us, we need to listen to them. We need to be more genuine when we ask questions and be ready for a person's answer. If we can work to keep each other out of the red, we can begin to build each other up little by little and all feel stronger for it.
Think of it as the idea of "30 Second Community." We don't have to spends hours with a person to make them feel a part of something. A lot of people don't even feel like they are part of the world around them, much less a smaller more intimate community. If we can take just 30 seconds and use someones name or genuinely ask them about their day, we can have a communal moment. A time when you and that person connect and acknowledge one another. Then we can begin to have 30 Second Communities in the places we go on a regular basis. Whether that be the coffee house we visit every day or the grocery store we visit once a week.
I know that 30 seconds may not seem like much, but it can change a person. Think about how small kindnesses have effected you when you really needed it. Let's start building these small communities and watch the change. It will change you and it will change them.
