“How are you?” How often do you hear that question throughout the day? How often do you ask it? When was the last time you answered truthfully or really listened?
“How are you?” has become synonymous with “Hello.” In fact, there have been times when I have asked someone how they are and when they start to tell me truthfully, I find myself internally rolling my eyes. Don’t they know they’re just supposed to say “Good and you?” It’s not the beginning of a conversation. It’s just a polite interaction. Right?
Why? Why is it that we can’t take five minutes out of our oh-so-busy lives to truly find out how another person is doing? To connect on a human-to-human level and just listen?
Every single person on this earth craves human connection. In fact, babies get sick if they do not have enough human contact. The same goes with adults. We all need to truly connect with other people. Face to face. Hand to hand. Heart to heart.
I love to travel. One of my favorite things about traveling used to be meeting new people on the airplane. The next time you go to the airport, or anywhere that you have to wait for a bit, look around. It will be hard to find even a single person without some kind of device in their hands. You’ll see even less people engaged in face-to-face conversations.
Though our modern-day gadgets make it simple to get in touch with someone, they keep us out of touch at the same time. Social media is a fantastic way to keep in touch with people and to build new connections, but it is also easy to fall into talking more than you listen. So often it seems we are more concerned with posting that great pic before we forget the funny caption or replying to someone’s status first, than actually having substance to our interactions. Though social media is virtual, the connections can be very real and very valuable, if you invest the time in them.
It’s important to invest time in every relationship. However, in today’s world, it is all too easy to fall into the “too busy” and “I don’t have time” traps. Everyone is busy. Everyone has a lot of stuff to do, but everyone also needs to hear “How are you?” from someone truly ready to listen to them once in awhile too.
Live Life,
Bert Oliva