May 12 • The Archive 🗂️
Stop Contributing To The Problem
I had a discussion with a good friend of mine a few weeks ago. Relating to the general attitude of us younger people: The need to appear nonchalant and unassuming, and how this impedes genuine connection.
It is not uncommon to walk into a room where every person is staring at their phone with their headphones in. This instigates the following reaction: Me, pulling out my phone, cycling through instagram, calculator and the weather app just to look like I am busy and this is why I am not speaking to anyone, and definitely not because being the first to make an effort to socialise is voluntarily putting yourself in a vulnerable position.
My friend asked me why I talk to so many people at the gym and my answer was that I no longer want to contribute to the problem of antisocial-ness. An inflated sense of self-importance and need to keep up appearances is the fastest route to isolation: It paralyses you from acting, making you incapable of biting the bullet and opening up a social interaction, because that makes you vulnerable to the very real risk of judgement.
A quick distinction: Walking in the gym with your headphones in and hoodie up because you want a peaceful, undisturbed workout is fair game, however making the same entrance for appearance sake is quite frankly ridiculous. So unless I want some solitude, I will say hello to the regular faces because nobody in their right mind will respond negatively to positivity.
This lead to another question from my friend: What to do if they don't respond positively to your first interaction? It is simple, their reaction is out of your control and so is almost unimportant. The only focus is to spread positivity, to break the ice but from my very brief experience doing this, the responses are almost always positive, and if one day they aren't, or you are ignored - who cares? Just go again tomorrow.
Trying to appear nonchalant and important is quite frankly ridiculous and we should all stop doing it. None of us have it together, we are all ignorant, stupid and ludicrous in our own unique ways and should embrace this fact. This is wishful thinking, but what we CAN do, is stop contributing to the problem.
This is an idea I would encourage in all aspects of life: See a problem? Good, it is now your responsibility to stop contributing to it.
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Stop Contributing To The Problem
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