Human

Humanity. Such a fickle thing. Society, a construct of our own consciencesness.

Maybe it’s the social media I follow. I try to consider myself well rounded. But plenty of people could tell me I’m too bigoted or ignorant. And that’s honestly fine. We all lead our own lives. We have the biggest issue understanding that our different experiences lead us to different… well understandings. Different lessons.

I think my favorite quote about life lessons is this “Experience is a the worst teacher. It gives the test first and the lesson afterwards”, but maybe I’ll touch on that later.

That’s not what I’m on about. I feel like writing my next rambling of no consequence because I realized something. We forget that everyone we meet are human. But what does that even mean.

Sonder.  “The realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.” ~ The Dictionary of obscure sorrows by John Koenig

I love that someone put a definition to this. We are all interconnected yet completely separated.

I recently met someone new that I could just push off and forget and move into the next task at hand. A junk man, honestly. He came to pick up some junk I had been trying to get rid of. Picked it up for free, and that’s it. But when we met, he made a little mention about a big event that he experienced. He had just gotten surgery and that’s why he had a fellow helping him and he mentioned it as an apology because I was helping load my junk into his trailer.

I stopped for a split second and discussed with him the surgery because I had a friend get the same surgery years ago. Wished him well and continued helping load the trailer with his helper.

Now why did this even matter? Well, because he’s not just a junk man, he’s a scrap man. He picked up my junk for free because he can scrap it for cash. So it costs me nothing but a few minutes. Try and do that yourself. Typically, a junk man will charge you a few hundred dollars, so a free one is a big deal to me. I’ve dealt with both.

I recently decided I wanted to do some work around the house that requires me to get rid of a bunch of scrapable junk.

So I decided to reach out to this guy, after thinking I would never deal with him again. I asked if the trash I needed to get rid of from the work would be useful to him. He told me absolutely. Well, fantastic! I thought I was going to have to pay for a large junk removal when all was said and done.

But my conversation didn’t stop there. I remembered his comment. I asked him how he was healing from surgery. A person I have nothing more than minor “business” dealings with.

Where am I going with this? I guess here. We all need to Sonder sometimes. We all get wrapped up in our own life we forget that every “extra” we encounter has a very complex life of their own. And that even we are just an “extra” in their life.

This person can be the wait staff at your favorite restaurant, the person behind the counter at that fast food joint you grabbed a sandwich or coffee from, the clerk at the till in your local grocery store. They’re people too.

Sometimes I believe we need to take a step back. Feel some empathy. We need to pay just a little more attention to our “extras”. Why? Well, because as big as the world is, we still need our “village”.

So the next time you want to get angry that your order was wrong, or that someone is driving too slow in front of you… Just take a breath. Realize, we’re all Human.