I stopped listening to music on my morning runs years ago. Though I enjoy music and even began following bands my kids suggested, the over-and-over playlists just got to be too much. Remember buying an entire album just to hear the one song we liked? Remember finding a new song, that extraordinary moment of introduction to something unexpected, and bobbing our heads to a new experience?
Those days are gone with streaming services that allow the download of one song at a time. The serendipity of finding something new vanished.
I had earbuds firmly implanted as I worked in my yard the other day. Usually, I'm listening to a book but sometimes I'll opt for a good speech or sermon. That day, it was a podcast proffered by a friend who said, "This is a very telling conversation if you can carve out a little time."
The podcast, "Crazy Money with Paul Ollinger," had a guest named Dr. Laurie Santos discuss the science of well-being. Dr. Santos is a Yale psychology professor with her own podcast, "The Happiness Lab." Hip-sounding names like that usually mean that the information is shallow, so I tend to avoid diving in. But the conversation hooked me in the first five minutes.
Ollinger is a former Facebook executive and does some comedy in addition to his podcast. He played the moderator to Santos' excruciatingly precise observations. She started by explaining that social media is part of the reason behind the pandemic of depression and anxiety. But the real culprit is a byproduct of engaging with screens. Social media is but a symptom, a splinter under the thumbnail of genuine engagement.
Social media can easily swipe someone's legs and drag him or her into the morass of meaningless moments. It's easy to get sucked in and suddenly come back to the reality that several minutes--or hours--have evaporated into nothingness.
But more telling is that social media lights the fuse to the mortal sin of comparison. "Comparison is the thief of joy," Dr. Santos says, repeating Theodore Roosevelt's quote. We naturally compare because it's in our genetic clothing to do so. But if people buried in an already transitional time--our youngsters--believe they are less, they likely won't engage and are more likely to, in fact, be less. That in itself is a stumbling block to happiness.
Dr. Santos remarked that she's particularly worried about the cafeteria at Yale. She walks through and sees young, smart people surrounded by other young, smart people wearing giant noise-canceling headphones. They've effectively shrunk their worlds, eliminating engagement with strangers. They remain islands with treasures hidden by the refusal to open themselves to an extraordinary moment.
Extraordinary moments are those times when chance and circumstance align into a transformational instance. Occasionally, we get blindsided by them and we can point to that moment when we met our future spouse, saw our children for the first time, had a dream job become a reality. But, more often, it takes depth to recognize the extraordinary moments in our lives and usually, they come in the form of a brief interaction with the unfamiliar.
My wife will talk to a wall. She effortlessly engages everyone she meets and can find out a life story in a matter of minutes. I've sat waiting in a car for her to come out of a store only to see her in the distance holding hands with a stranger as they cry together. People instantly like her. Me? I kind of grow on you after a while. Like ivy. But she's modeled that imperfect dance of introduction where just acknowledging another human being in your presence might be a door opening to a fuller life, a beam of light gathering a wider arc as that door opens. An extraordinary moment.
I returned to the image of the Yale cafeteria many times. All those kids isolating themselves in public, erasing the chance to interact. Can you imagine the difference a nod could make or just a quick meeting of eyes that might turn into a conversation?
I hold fast to the age-old concept that dinner time is family time. That's when devices disappear, and that holy gathering strengthens its roots. But lunch: That's a great time to be open to strangers and acquaintances, to be receptive to an unplanned conversation that will likely be fleeting--or could be the seeds of transformation. Devices down, eyes up, and suddenly vulnerability--that's openness--becomes strength.
Until the pandemic, six feet seemed pretty close. Now, that same distance feels like a continental journey. Recognizing the things that put distance between people who are actually close by is the essence of what Dr. Santos calls "time affluence." It's deriving value and joy from an abundance of unscheduled time. Extrapolated, it means taking a moment to look up, to recognize the world around us, to engage.
When I want to see my old record collection, I just walk into my teenage daughter's room where she has a wall decorated with album jackets. She's mostly not listening to the music; she just likes the cover art. But as I pass through, it's easy to remember those times when I bought one of those albums and discovered that I enjoyed that band more than I knew.
Likewise, it's easy to recognize the folks who started out as quick introductions or as afterthought conversations but are now mainstays in our lives. It's easy to recognize those simple, engaging instances that became extraordinary moments.
Steve Straessle, whose column appears every other Saturday, is the principal of Little Rock Catholic High School for Boys. You can reach him at sstraessle@lrchs.org. Find him on Twitter @steve_straessle.