Starting anything can be a challenge. You have to go from a state of not doing to one of doing — to overcome inertia and the urge to just stay in the same place. This explains why so many people remain in the same old job, the same old relationship and the same old you name it. As bad as current conditions might be, the effort to do something new has to be justified by our realization of what we can gain from it.
This is the case when we meet people for the first time. There is a certain amount of effort required to adjust our minds to figuring out what we’re dealing with — what drives and motivates the strangers we encounter. It often may seem like it is more trouble than it’s worth.
Of course, there is more to it than just inertia, which by itself is bad enough. There is a fear of the unknown — of dealing with someone who might cause problems or even be dangerous. In most social situations, however, our fear isn’t always of some kind of bodily harm. It could instead be an avoidance of experiencing the awkwardness and embarrassment of interacting with people who might not accept us — who simply might not like us and therefore reject us.
So many of us can be very sensitive as to how we are treated. Maybe it produces a certain low-level anxiety about our place in the social order of things. Being spurned or shunned may give us a feeling that we have no support from those around us, leaving us with a sense of being vulnerable. It may be that as long as we don’t know for sure whether others will accept us, we can hold onto the slender thread of hope that the world isn’t as bad a place as we fear it is. We can assume that we aren’t as alone and isolated as we fear we might be as long as we don’t actually experience our isolation by being rejected.
That unknowing, however, is really not all that comforting. We really can’t take solace in our solitude, even though we might try to convince ourselves that we are better off not knowing without a doubt that we can’t depend on others.
But there are other reasons we may avoid people. We may feel that they really aren’t worth knowing. They may seem boring, self-absorbed and incapable of providing us with even a few moments of engaging conversation. The first questions we may ask are “what’s in it for me?” or “what am I going to get out of this?” Seeing the world in terms of what benefits you exclusively without considering what you might have that could benefit others leaves you with a fairly small circle of acquaintances. Ideally it’s what’s mutually beneficial that creates the basis of a solid relationship with others.
Judging whether people are worthy of our time can’t be based on mere surface impressions. And their worthiness can’t be based on whether they can tell funny jokes or engaging stories. It really takes time to get to know people — to see who they are and to understand what they truly have to offer. Even someone who appears boring or stand-offish may give us insight into human nature. Getting past certain problematic characteristics may lead us to understand and appreciate that person better, even to the point of developing a true and lasting friendship.
But all of that lies outside our reach if we aren’t willing to break the ice — to expand our comfort zone to include that which has in the past made us uncomfortable. We have to weigh the cost of doing so against the cost of doing nothing. And we have to face the possibility that our initial forms of outreach may yield little.
In the end, though, the rewards of reaching out are only attainable when there’s someone out there to reach out to. If we’re surrounded by people who are disinclined to establishing some kind of connection with others — if they feel it isn’t worth it or even possible — they will not be dependable partners in this process. This is where many of us find ourselves — unfulfilled in our search for life beyond the four walls of our exile. There’s no such thing as a community of one.
Perhaps, however, regardless of whether we find others with whom we might collaborate right away, we need to look at the problem differently. If we break the ice but the water remains frigid, the ice will form again quickly. If, on the other hand, we exude warmth and caring, we can melt the ice, removing the barrier not with the force of our will but rather with the radiance of our love. And so, it would seem that the real key is not changing our actions but altering our attitudes — softening our hearts, unclenching our minds and rising above our petty concerns on a tide of compassion.
Could this change of attitude become contagious? Will it spread to the hearts of those around us? We can hope, of course, but maybe what’s most important is that we find a way to allay our own fears and realize that even as many around us appear to be caught in the frozen grip of their apprehensions, our eyes and our hearts can be opened so that we can see and meet those who feel as we do, whose warmth we can combine with our own and in so doing change the world in a small way that eventually sends out wider ripples.