As I walked to my car after a recent meetup with a long time friend who’s going through some personal/transitional events in their life, I found myself hoping that my sincere efforts to give them some feedback and share my own experiences, having been in similar situations, might resonate and help them out. I also thought about how much I wanted to not only be supportive, but to be recognized as such by my friends and those around me.Why that latter part? The need to be known as caring or giving?
There’s people I interact with on a daily basis in my work life that I still don’t really know much about. When I do take the time to get to know somebody, I always enjoy doing so, and I walk away with the recognition of ‘yet another soul’ in the sphere of my own influence as well as being an opportunity to be influenced by. But there’s as many or more people who don’t know much of me, or likely give me a second thought. Just as have been many ‘ancillary’ players in the dramas of my own life’s past.
People come and go, ebb and flow, throughout all of our lives, and those that get close enough tend to get the most consideration, even if the forces of time might eventually move them out of reach, in any of the ways that could occur, be it physically or emotionally or both.
Life sets us out on interwoven paths that tend to end like a rope that frays. Some strands connect and strength for awhile, some mesh permanently, while others contribute to the overall cohesion while never making direct contact at all.
As I consider the realm of my own influences, and in a case such as today when I reach out to respond to somebody I see as potentially needing some connection or direction, I catch myself hoping that it's recognized and influential. What I do (smiling at a colleague as we pass each other in the hall, take the time to make eye contact, make conversation, reach out to a friend in need) are all things I want myself. I want to be supported, smiled at, looked in the eye, reached out too, etc. I do what I want.