I'm sitting in a tiny hole-in-the wall cafe and I'm watching all the people go by. Two parents laughing with their children, a man who has opened the door for three strangers, and a pair of acquaintances using technology to (quite obviously) ignore each other as they walk past.

In a fit of pure boredom and desperate procastination, I began to think up of random back stories as to why they could be ignoring each other. As my stories got more and more involved--a scorned lover here, a bout with amnesia over there, you know the usual--I realized something. Today, ignoring someone or feigning indifference is a norm which doesn't require much to justify.

We live in a world where we mistake being cold as being cool--a world where we mistake indifference for strength. Why are we so afraid to let things, or God forbid, people matter to us?

Some say, it's self preservation. If you don't care about anything, nothing can cause us pain. Myth has it that if we let people matter to us we allow them--even equip them--to hurt us.

For awhile I was a strong subscriber to this school of a thought. As someone who has had, too many times to count, been in situations where I have cared so deeply and so much more strongly for someone, I had learned the hard way it was much easier to keep things at arms length. After all, how could we mourn the loss of something we never cared about?

"I can't just randomly tell him that I'm thinking about him, he'd think I'm weird"
"I know she's having a bad day, but I just can't start talking to her...how weird would that be?"
"I didn't like him anyway"

But one day I realized I had it all wrong. I wasn't afraid of what people would think of me, I was afraid of what I would think of myself.  I was afriad of how I would feel when that one moment had passed and I was left with nothing but my inevitable reflection and (over)analysis of the situation. What if they abuse my compassion or misunderstand my kindness?


It was completely one hundred percent selfish. To continue going on in life withholding things as simple as kind words or a warm smile because we are afraid implies that that we carry this false belief that every interaction we have--whether with our loved ones or with the strangers we encounter on the street--are meant to serve the sole purpose of making us feel good about ourselves. We completely and selfishly ignore the other person.

We second guess ourselves because we have become so inclined to believe that we were meant to be warriors--unfazed by the sentiments of others, undaunted by what lies ahead--but we have to realize the possibility that maybe God gave us another day not because we needed it, but because someone out there needs us.