A Risk Worth Taking
Why we hesitate and what might happen if we didn't
Today, I saw someone returning from the shops. She had her stick and two shopping bags. She was walking a few steps and then stopping and putting the bags down. I was on the other side of the road and I had seen her earlier. I’d tried to smile but she hadn’t engaged and then our paths crossed once more.
If I’d been walking with a friend, I wouldn’t have hesitated to offer to carry the bags but here was a stranger not even in proximity to me. I knew nothing about her relationship to receiving help and how comfortable she would be if I offered.
I stalled. The part of me telling me just to focus on my day and not involve myself. She was after all managing and she of course knew that she’d have bags to carry. Yet I couldn’t. I crossed the road...
As I reflect , what had made me stall? Why didn’t I run straight up to her the moment I saw her and offer to help? Fear. Worst case she’d ignore me or alternatively she’d decline. Neither of which would kill me but they would have upset my ego. Rejection is painful.
Yet are we ever rejected? Or is it always a redirection? A gentle nudge by above to say, not this way, there is a better way. This is not for you. Move on. Find something more aligned.
Or perhaps rejection is just a way to remind us that we are all on our own journeys and it’s not really about the other. We are all on our own unique path. We all have our own perspectives and own reasons for the decisions we make. Merely being in proximity to someone doesn’t mean you can read their needs.
And yet, when I crossed the road and asked if I could carry her bags, she said yes. Just like that. There was no awkwardness. No rejection. No story playing out in the way my mind had rehearsed.
As we walked together for a few minutes, I learnt that her father had just died and perhaps what I had perceived earlier as unfriendliness was in fact the grief she was navigating quietly as she walked to the shops.
On reflection it makes me think about how often we hesitate on the edge of connection because we are trying to protect ourselves from some moment of discomfort? How easily do we dress it up as something else, we tell ourselves, we are minding our own business or they don’t want to hear from us and we make it right to maintain distance.
Today, it wasn’t really about the bags. It was about a willingness to step through the discomfort of moving towards connection, a small risk in exchange for perhaps a heartfelt human connection.
There is so much loneliness in the world. Some is seen and some is behind the scenes. A quiet disconnection with what it is to be human but we can all take opportunities to move towards connection, hidden behind these tiny and perhaps unremarkable moments. Crossing a road. Making a phone call. Sending a text. Smiling at a stranger.
So perhaps rejection isn’t the thing we need to fear. Perhaps indifference is.
So my invitation to you today is to consider where in your life you may be stalling.
What fear is holding you back?
Could you cross the road too?
With love
Claire 💛