“We seldom realize, for example that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society.”
― Alan Watts
We all have this mindset that morally & ethically we should mind our own business and avoid unnecessary interaction with others for reasons. That sure has its own profits but on the other hand that makes us insensitive, lonely and impatient. During our busy & dully day to day life, always being/sticking in the same place and even with the same people all day long, it gets us more tired, lowers our energy and motivation. Which eventually makes us unhappy, thus an unhappy society.
Especially since the pandemic has run over us, we have been struggling with depression and anxiety for a long period of time. We started to fear each other. While we avoided each other, we isolated ourselves even more. In this process, we had the opportunity to experience many things. After spending a long time with ourselves, we started to feel a hunger to communicate with others. Consequently everyone gained a new awareness from this sudden change. And I think one of them is that we realized that socializing with people is quite a luxury.
Right after the restrictions lessened and got our vaccines,we were able to back to our new-normal life cycle somewhat. And through this post-covid era, I recently built a new habit of talking / interacting with people I don’t know randomly. And honestly I have never thought that just having small chitchats with someone I don’t know would be this beneficial in many aspects for not only for me but the other party as well. This small and random interactions makes my day now. It brushes stress of the day away, brings me excitement and enlightenment and more importantly it helps to the other person as well.
While exercising this morning, I listened a podcast about the impacts of talking to random people in random places. I saw the podcast by chance so I was so happy to see that there was a scientific perspective on my behavior.
Dr Gillian Sandstrom, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, University of Essex, has studied the effects of our little interactions with people we don’t know:
Gillian’s PhD research, which was conducted at the University of British Columbia in Canada, investigated whether social interactions with weak ties (acquaintances) are related to well-being. Although we may assume that our well-being depends solely on social interactions with our close friends and family, Gillian’s research demonstrates that people are happier on days when they have more interactions with weak ties.
In one study, it was found that participants who engaged in a social interaction with a barista, by smiling, making eye contact and having a brief conversation (thus treating them like a weak social tie), experienced greater feelings of well-being and belonging than those whose interaction was limited to an efficient, but impersonal, commercial transaction.
Unlike how we exposed to those interacts on the internet everyday, it may have sounds weird to you the idea of suddenly interacting with a stranger in person. Depending on the culture we come from, we have many barriers to doing that however for the sake of our society’s health I believe we need it. When we drown in our own bustle of life, when we lose the strength to cope with our feelings, we need something to help us get out of our own delusions. To remind ourselves that we are part of a society, we belong somewhere, we are known and we know someone when we can reach out in need, we have people who cares about us and people we care about, we need to take an action. I assure you it’s not too much work. Just a smile and hi can save someone’s day.
