What Are You Lookin' At?

Here’s a quick exercise. Count how many people you actually engaged face-to-face today who are not your family, not your co-workers, and not regular (everyday) work related folks. Now, be really honest. By engagement, by the way, I don’t mean mindless small talk about the weather. So how many is it? I feel confident that a meaningful number of us can honestly say “zero.”


Engagement. It’s a funny word. It can be a date, or an excuse not to go on one (“sorry, I have a previous engagement”). You can engage gears. You can engage someone in conversation. It can be the period prior to marriage. Someone charismatic is often described as “engaging.” You can engage the enemy.


So what’s my deal with engagement? I exalt involvement over complacency. I would ask us to look closely at our community and to identify our role in it. In short, I ask us all to become engaged.


Try this: when you get your coffee in the morning, or see a stranger at the gas station or in the parking lot, or ride up the elevator with someone, look them right in the eye and smile. A real smile. Then pay attention. How do they react? When they smile (and they will, if they don’t think you’re psychotic), how does it make you feel? Watch them as they walk away.


That is engagement at its barest level. You share a simple moment of clear communication. Is that engagement enough? I believe that interaction provokes social intimacy and that social intimacy inspires a sense of community. I hold that sense of community at the highest level, and I strongly believe that we need to cultivate it. Do I think a smile cultivates community? I do think a smile helps build a sense of community.


But that smile is really just the start. What we all really need to do is actively participate in our communal lives. I know we’re all busy. We all face pressures. I know how tired I feel when I get home lots of nights. At the same time, every day offers opportunities for pain-free, energy-free engagement. So if we’re so tired and busy and stressed, how can we fill our days with anything else? How can we engage?


One answer is simple: “Be Present”. That clear look in the eye. That smile. That’s active engagement. But, that’s just the start. That’s the baseline. That’s the bare minimum.


We all need to push just a little harder. If we could find one or two hours a week of time, we could make a real difference somewhere. That’s less than 5% of a typical work week. It’s 10-20 minutes a day. We just need to take time.


There are a lot of things we can do with that time. We could volunteer at our kids’ schools, at church, at a senior living home. We could tutor kids. We could help a neighbor do some work in their yard. We could help at a neighborhood group.


To me, the most important part of that kind of engagement isn’t the work accomplished, it’s the ties created. You will get to know more people. You will have more community context. You may start to wonder how the people you meet are doing. When they’re well, you’ll revel in their happiness. When they’re down, you’ll be concerned. In short, you’ll become more socially engaged.


Community is about where we live. It’s also about how we define the web of social networks around us. It’s about how we think of the world outside of a simple address. It’s a combination of simple geography and complex social interactions. At its heart, community is mutable. That is, community is inherently changeable. What we must avoid is complacency. We must not let community happen to us, we must create it for ourselves. And, we must see that we are a part of other people’s community.


So really, the question isn’t “What are you lookin’ at?” The question is: “What do you see?”