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Advice: 25 Cents

I’ve been in NYC for almost six months now (for those of you playing along at home) and while I really feel like I’m getting the hang of the City, there are still a few things that are a little unfamiliar to me.  

 

I’m still adjusting to a new set of social norms.  I’ve never lived in a particularly big city before, and I’m learning pretty quickly that people here are completely different than people in Salt Lake City.  

 

Back home, if you’re walking down the street and you see a cute dog, of course you pet it.

 

People do not like when you do that here.

 

Back home, if you see someone reading your favorite book, of course you stop to discuss it with that person.

 

Here, that would make you seem like a crazy person.

 

Back in SLC, it used to really bother me that nearly every person you came in contact with wanted to chat with you.  But it’s almost equally as annoying that, in NYC, cashiers will frequently avoid making eye contact with you.  

 

And while part of me is thrilled that I don’t have to talk about the weather with the stranger selling me nail polish, another part of me is fascinated with how impersonal human interaction has become.  

 

How unwilling we are to sacrifice a bit of time or energy to make a connection with another person, even when we’re literally standing right next to each other in the subway.     

 

Strangers share smiles far too infrequently here.

 

Don’t get me wrong, I value my personal, quiet time.  There are certainly times when I’m in no mood to deal with other people’s malarkey.  

 

Yet it’s also troubling to realize that, even though I’m surrounded by people pretty much all the time, I interact with very few of them.  Partially because no one wants to discuss novels with me on the train, but also because I’m becoming less and less willing to engage others.     

 

That’s making me very aware of how much I am (or am not) opening myself up to the people that actually do want to interact with me.  

 

Do I avoid my neighbors when I see them at the store, so I don’t have to talk to them?  Do I avoid making eye contact when people ask me for spare change?

 

Christian wrote earlier this week about how easy it is to overlook the needs of other people around us.  How easy it is to forget to be kind.

 

And he’s right.  It is easy to retreat into our own lives, to forget to open our eyes and see the other people around us.  

 

We may even purposefully close our eyes at times, and intentionally ignore the needs of others.  

 

I try my hardest to not forget that there are other people, living their own lives with their own struggles, surrounding me all the time. Yet, in the last few months, I find myself engaging others less.    

 

For someone who truly believes that organic moments of human interaction are one of the most beautiful things in life, I worry that I’m getting so caught up in myself that I’m losing a lot of little opportunities to express love and kindness.  

 

And I know that, if I continue to overlook those opportunities, not only will I forget to help other people as they need it, but I’ll also become a less caring and compassionate person.  No matter how hard I work to be that kind of person to my friends, that work is undermined if it’s not how I relate to people every day.  

 

It’s possible that the woman on the subway who smiled at me was just smiling, but it’s also possible that she needed someone to smile back.  And however fleeting that moment was, acknowledging someone who would otherwise be lost in a sea of faces is a comforting expression of our shared humanity.     

 

The other day, I saw a woman in the park; she had two folding chairs and a sign that read “Advice: 25 Cents.”  I had never seen such a good deal on advice before and couldn’t resist.  We spent a good fifteen minutes together while she let me tell her what was on my mind.  Her advice was a combination of poignant and completely absurd and, when it was all said and done, she left me with a simple: “Honey, you’re gonna be fine.  Just be kind.”

 

It wasn’t exactly life changing advice.  But it was a nice reminder.  And the time I got to spend with a fun, eccentric woman who just wanted to offer some advice to people in need of it was beautiful.

 

And it really reminded me how good it is to make a brief connection with another person.  Both of us reinforcing each other’s value in the simplest way, by being kind.  

 

By being human, truly present with another person rather than avoiding them.  

 

So, while I’m probably not going to continue to try and pet other people’s dogs (they REALLY don’t like that here) I am going to try and still be the weird girl who wants to talk about the book you’re reading, or who smiles at the keepers of the nail polish.  Because even though, most of the time anyway, people in a big city may pretend the thousands of people around them don’t exist, there will be times they don’t. There will be times they let down their guard and stop being afraid to act like people.


And those times are worth finding.

 

 

Charissa is a Young Adult Ministries Coordinator for Y2AM.  Charissa grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah and studied political science at the University of Utah.  She enjoys sunshine, the mountains and snowcones.  Charissa currently lives in New York City.

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