Just Try

Just a few phrases and facts to preface this with (if this were a scientific or psychological or professional peer reviewed article consider this the abstract):

“People don’t care what you know until they know you care”

“To fix a problem you need to acknowledge there is one to begin with”

“We cannot change another person’s behavior or beliefs or the like. That is ultimately up to them – and for good reason, they’re not going to be coming to you at 3 am. They’re going to go to their behaviors and higher power not you. All you can do is offer what has worked for you, plant the seed and love them as they make their decision(s) and continue to love them even if when they make said decision it’s not the one you were hoping for”.

“People only hear what they want to and are capable of hearing.”

“If they say they care then they will make the time to communicate with you. It doesn’t have to be a 3 hour conversation every night, but if they care they will make the time.”

“Truth is subjective until it isn’t anymore. Our eyes actually transmit what we see to our brains through the visual cortex and it gets flipped on the horizontal axis so our brains process reality upside down, or reality is really reversed than how we perceive it” (upside down kingdom)

“The simple things in life are the most beautiful, precious, often fleeting and hardest to follow” (keep it simple, stupid)

“Yesterday’s gone, tomorrow – even the next heartbeat- is not promised, all we have is today”

“Contrary to popular belief, people can change. To say that’s just how they are, they’ll never change, excuses them of responsibility and robs them the opportunity of growing through a new behavior (be it mental, verbal, emotional, spiritual), lifestyle or mindset. But they will only change if they want to”

“Hurt people hurt people”

That’s enough to chew on for a while for sure but there are some things that I think deserve additional attention to flesh out the full implications and not have it taken out of context.

One of my favorite movies growing up was the Princess Bride and one of the best lines is “Life is suffering highness. Whoever tells you anything else is selling you something”. Even Jesus, whether you believe in Him or not, said in John 16:33 that “in this world you will have trouble. But take heart, I have overcome the world”

We are all broken people- none of us are perfect, have a perfect life despite our social media highlight reels and are living in a broken world whose very existence is treated with every passing year with worse and worse chemicals being injected or into our farms and food supplies, is has been a long standing fact that it’s nearly impossible to eat healthy if you’re forced to watch your food budget.

Many are forced to choose between food and paying for rent, utilities, transportation and other basic necessities. At the time of this Feeding America report in 2018, one in nine adults and one in seven children lived in households without consistent access to adequate food. When analyzed in 2018, across the 37 million those individuals estimated to be food insecure, however, the national shortfall stands at nearly 19.5 billion. Through the lens of local meal costs, it is possible to see how difficult it is to afford enough food to live active healthy lives.

Not only that but making necessary dietary changes to account for health reasons such as gluten intolerance or other allergies for example can add quite easily an additional $200 a month to an individual’s food budget. This is to say nothing of the stress of having to constantly have on hand food that you are able to eat, be able to find a local restaurant that offers food you are able to eat and deal with at the very cheapest $3 for exchanging white wheat or rye toast for Cauliflower bread.

But this is representative of our societal and individual starvation and cost we are expected to pay to even get proper “nutrition”. We are the most connected, fastest growing generation concerning technological advancement, progress and availability of information (what once ranged about 80 years now only takes about 2.5), yet we more isolated, lonely, overlooked and neglected who not only lack connection, but even the language, capacity or ability to build those lacking skills for want of available resources such as free or low cost events to gather with others in real life versus via some sort of screen.

“US Trends in Social Isolation, Social Engagement, and Companionship”

presented us with the following sad but true supporting research findings in 2022:

Social connectedness is essential for health and longevity, while isolation exacts a heavy toll on individuals and society. We present U.S. social connectedness magnitudes and trends as target phenomena to inform calls for policy-based approaches to promote social health. Using the 2003–2020 American Time Use Survey, this study finds that, nationally, social isolation increased, social engagement with family, friends, and ‘others’ (roommates, neighbors, acquaintances, coworkers, clients, etc.) decreased, and companionship (shared leisure and recreation) decreased.

Humans are one of the most social of all animals and seek frequent, on-going social engagement . Social isolation (i.e., social deficits indicated by infrequent or insufficient engagement with others) is linked to decrements in health and longevity. Isolated individuals are at elevated risk for cardiovascular disease, dementia, infectious disease, low functional status, anxious or depressed mood, biological markers of poor health (e.g., C-reactive protein, fibrinogen levels), and mortality including overdose and suicide. Isolation is comparable to or rivals other well-known mortality risk factors like air pollution, smoking, and inactivity. (Kannan VD, Veazie PJ.)

We have to actively fight this epidemic and engage with others even if it means going out of your comfort zone- in fact it would be better for all parties involved if this were the case- to facilitate human contact, listen to and possibly learn from each other, express (or learn) empathy, compassion and a different perspective. If all we ever do is stay within our comfort zone of already established societal bubbles, what would keep us from intellectual, emotional and mental stagnation at best or atrophy if brutally honest?

We only know less than 1/10th of what any individual is going through and even your closest friends and family members if you are lucky enough to have them often still hold back.

We all have gone through periods of hurting, have recently come out of it, are in it, or are about to go into it. We need to recognize that if we do something as small as make eye contact or even smile at a stranger that could potentially be lifesaving. Adding a compliment not based on their appearance (such as their smile or thanking them for service if at a check out counter, or especially if they are wearing any type of uniform or veteran’s hat etc) can increase this impact ten-fold. Doing so actually helps us ease our own hurt and potentially theirs however briefly. However, let us not discount this powerful action based on the length of the interaction.

Unfortunately it may be easier to do this for strangers because of the brevity mentioned. When it comes to friends and family if we say we care we actually need to back that up and show up instead of just one or two sentences on the inside of a holiday card. They need us just as much as we need them and if regular contact is not maintained – however short and through whatever platform or method(s) are most comfortable- then we need to evaluate the situation. Time is something that flies by too fast and we are never promised and even sending a simple text asking how their day is going or sharing something that made you laugh can do wonders. It’s the simple intangibles that often go farther than we will ever realize.

We need to be willing to change and reject the lie that people will never change. Yes it might take a near death experience- hopefully not- but people can and do change when they want to. And change for the better.

But none of this will take place if we don’t at least acknowledge that the current situation is what it is and that there are crises, wounds, secret “hanging on only by a thread” individuals in our lives that we most likely do not even realize because society and our experiences have taught us to hide it so well.

It’s getting better than it was a number of years ago, but there is still a lot of work to be done.

Be kind to someone. It takes so little. Or if that’s too challenging at this moment, try to refrain from verbalizing one negative comment at least once this week.