”We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep” William James
William James, an American philosopher and psychologist was on to something in the late 1800s when he penned this quote. It’s the inspiration for our next post focusing on the importance of connecting with others.
By design humans are social creatures driven by a desire to connect with people around them. That’s not to say they want to build relationships with everyone they come across but the feeling of connection to others is a fundamental human need. In fact this need is bigger than humans and is carried by almost every other living organism as well. Think of a school of fish, a herd of elephants or pack of wolves. Even the evil hyenas in the Lion King movies were part of a bigger cackle.
It’s this very need that meant even through evolution we continued to maintain strong connections with those closest to us. Over the ages these connections were typically influenced by geography, religion, common interests and blood, and this largely remains the same today. The most common connections we find in modern life would be your family unit, friends and acquaintances met through school, work or sport and for some religion.
In addition the emergence of technology has meant that the barriers for connecting with people all over the world are lower than ever and the ability to connect with anyone is higher than ever. Sounds like a good thing right?
Which is why it’s so surprising that more and more people feel lonelier and more disconnected than ever. No-one appears safe either. Take a look at the Gen Y and Z’s who know no different than being able to text, instant message or snap their friends at any moment yet they’re struggling just as much as the rest of us.
We’ve got a hypothesis on this.
Before we quickly go down a rabbit hole of bashing social media and criticising the younger generations – who actually have it pretty tough in our opinion – let’s dive into the type of connection we’re talking about and how to avoid those that aren’t positive for you.
You need to connect properly
A proper connection is the type where you’ve engaged, understood, contributed to and received value from an interaction. Whilst possible it’s highly unlikely you’re getting this from a text, an instant message or an email.
When we say connect we’re talking about a conversation, ideally face-to-face but more realistic for most over the phone. A video call is somewhere in the middle assuming you don’t spend half the time asking if it’s on or having a connection that cuts in and out.
Depth is important, even if it means sacrificing volume
Less can be more and when you’re looking at building and maintaining meaningful connections this is on point. Deep relationships take time, long-term commitment and ongoing care and for this reason it can be hard to do this with more than a handful of people. That’s not to say you can’t be friends with a heap more people but realistically we’re talking about 3-5 of the most important people in your life.
For the same reason a pool can be as wide and long as it likes but if the water isn’t deep enough you’re not going to dive head first in, prioritise depth of relationships over volume.
Not all connections are worth it
As much as we’d like to think that every person we connect with will be meaningful and add value to our lives, that’s simply just not the case. In fact, some of the connections that do the most damage to us are also those that are closet to us. As they say, you can’t choose your family and for some, you may found yourself deeply entwined with a friend or acquaintance that does nothing but bring negative energy into your life.
Typically we take a pretty ruthless stance on this one and suggest that you can do without any connection that falls into this category. It can be as simple as to stop talking to them and ignoring their attempts at contact. Life is too short to be dragging around an anchor along the way.
For those that would find this approach difficult, we’ve got a couple of less severe strategies for you. Firstly, do the exact opposite of what we originally suggested and avoid face-to-face, video or phone calls where possible. If you can’t avoid them completely, reduce the volume and regularity of them. You’ll find it far easier to reduce the negative impact they can have by communicating predominantly via text, instant messenger or email. It also means you might get to pick and choose when you deal with them a little more. For the instances you can’t avoid direct interaction, shift the nature of the conversation to a positive one by asking questions that focus on things they enjoy, are looking forward to or feel good about. If the conversation creeps back to where it normally goes change the subject. If none of these work, give our original idea a bit more thought.
Long story short, actually connecting with people requires the type of engagement you can only get face-to-face or by speaking with someone. Those connections that are meaningful and will add value to you are likely a handful of people that are most important to you. Some connections may actually detract from your life and various strategies exist to remove them completely or at a minimum reduce the impact they have.
Action for the week:
- Identify the 2-5 people most important to you and think about the way you’ve interacted with them over the last month – texts, instant messages and emails don’t count
- Over the next week give these people a phone call, video call or arrange a face-to-face discussion – whilst you’re there, agree on a regular time to do it again
- Objectively evaluate the negative connections in your life and put in place an approach that helps reduce the impact this has on you
If you’ve read our last couple of posts you should have a pretty good understanding of the importance of self-care and taking time for yourself, and the value of having deep, meaningful and real connections with the people closest to you. You’ll also have a couple of simple yet valuable processes in place to support maintaining both.
With the spiritual and emotional elements of our life looking a little clearer, our next post will dive back into the physical state with a focus on introducing the right nutrition into our lives.
We’d love to hear how you’ve gone with connecting more meaningfully, any tips or experience you have for managing negative connections, and any other comments or questions you have. Please reach out to us at any of our social media channels.