I'm falling, so I'm taking my time on my (bus) ride

 I've been thinking too much / Help me

A few moments ago I was on the bus. The driver left his passengers momentarily at the Eastgate Square terminal to go grab a snack in the mall. There were 7 of us left in the bus, waiting.

This wouldn’t be the first time I thought of this, but I imagined having the guts and the giftedness it would take to be like: “Hey everybody! My name is Joe, how are you all doing today?”

I think I even have done things to this effect before, and unfortunately I’ve found that people can be rather cold and disturbed; and frankly unprepared for real human encounters. However, is it impossible that at least one soul on that bus besides me could have fancied some small talk (and maybe even some honest life talk)? No, I don’t think that’s impossible at all.

Living in fear or living in love

The problem, though, is probably one we all share. Fear of rejection, fear of a negative response, fear of being ignored… I haven’t yet been given the gift of being able to handle rejection all that well. Or else, rest assured, I’d want to be doing things like this.

Why would we not want to engage our fellow man? 

We're as lonely as we wanted to be

I think we’ll find that our greatest pain in life is not being as connected to each other as we’d like. If we step back and analyze, we might find this is because of mindsets that circle around only caring about close friends and family, and strangers remain exactly that: strange. It’s my contention that if you fail to see everyone in the world as your friend and family you are projecting some form of lack of love into the world.

Ya, I get it, there’s all kinds of people in the world and you don’t wanna talk to all of them. You say hi to the scruffy looking middle-aged dude to your left because you were inspired by my entry here and he ends up talking your ear off and you feel bad to cut him off. Ya, we’re a weird bunch of people, mankind. But I think that’s besides the point.

What do I know?

If progress means facing obstacles and a few things we don’t love, it’s still progress. I could stay in my bed all day and face no resistance, but no one aspires to that kind of life.

Let’s get out of our beds and engage the world and we’ll change it, one encounter at a time. I think we’d be pleasantly surprised at how much can change with just a little bit of effort.

And I quote one of Ed Sheeran’s new songs, and I hope we all hear the same sentiment echoing somewhere in our beautiful hearts:

“Love could change the world in a moment

But what do I know?"

Joe