I listened to Coldplay's song, "See You Soon" exactly three times driving from my house to Safeway to buy more strawberries today. (See the lyrics here.) I was having one of those "lost-your-trust--bullet-proof-vest--windows-all-closed" sorts of days. I am pretty sure that in the first eight hours of my day I only spoke to two people.
A good night's rest is supposed to fix things like that, right? But I woke up grumpy still--frustrated that so many of my friends seem to be worried about what other people think about them and frustrated that I am also acutely worried about how other people perceive me. When I get too frustrated or concerned I seem to shut down and shut out. I get annoyed with the tourists on the metro who stand on the left side of the escalator, talk during rush hour, and make things crowded.
But one girl who seemed to be a tourist was being friendly to people on the train. I'll be honest--she looked a little different than most metro riders. She was exceptionally small, carried an apparently empty pink backpack, and had unusually long hair and librarian-style glasses. But I don't think she was a child. She was not "cool" and she broke the cardinal rule of not talking to the stranger next to you on the metro. She tried to talk to the lady sitting across from her about her phone; she asked to see her neighbors wedding ring and said it was beautiful; and she saw someone else with something from L.L.Bean and held up her pink backpack with a smile and pointed to establish a connection with that person. She was genuine, she cared, and some people still did not want to talk to her. But I think this girl is on to something.
Most people I know are concerned that if they show genuine interest in getting to know another person it will be interpreted as, well... showing interest! And for some reason we are generally worried about showing interest in another person. And because so many of us are worried about showing interest in others, we don't ever really get to know them. And then with a bunch of people who don't really know each other, many of us start to feel like people are judging us. But categorizing and judging and differentiating are things we all do when we don't really know who another person is. Yesterday I resolved to try to chip away at some of these insecurities and actually become friends with more people, but I kind of got cold responses, which made me feel even more insecure and more judged, and the cycle perpetuated because I started judging the tourists, not caring who they are as real people, as children of my Heavenly Father, as my brothers and sisters.
It's time to shift gears, change focus, and be more like the tourist on the metro. Here's to meaning it when I say, "How are you?" and to having enough confidence not to be discouraged when someone passes judgment on me. Because the only thing that will change the tide of general self-consciousness is genuinely caring about the person next to me.
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