8:30 a.m: It was that breeze-blowing, sun-shining kind of weather – the kind that is perfect for a morning run outdoors (one of my favorite things to do) – so I decided to ditch the gym today in favor of a more “organic” workout. Turning the corner off my street, I ran past a fellow jogger who smiled and waved at me and said, “Morning!”
And that was when I started thinking about humans and how much we adore commonalities. That simple interaction and snapshot of dialogue said much more than “Morning!” It said, “Hey, I noticed that we are doing the same thing, so I am going to acknowledge you.” It’s the same idea as that stranger you laugh with in the bathroom when the paper towel dispenser is broken – yeah, you know the one I’m talking about. Or the driver you exchange glances with at the stop light during rush hour as if to just commiserate for a moment and agree upon the fact that traffic just blows.
We humans love other humans who do the same things as us, watch the same things as us, shop the same places as we do… the list could go on for much longer than you’d want to read or I’d want to type. We love these moments because for once, the big, scary world seems a little less big and a little less scary. All of a sudden, instead of being those separate spheres on the Venn diagram, we fall into that middle sliver and it feels great. We have found someone who understands our frustration with the broken paper towel dispenser. Someone who might also be made late for whatever commitment they have due to the parking-lot-esque traffic. Someone who is feeling the same breeze on their face as they round the corner.
And that is really what this world and its people are about – finding people who are feeling the same breeze as we are, metaphorically speaking – or sometimes, on a perfectly weathered day like today, literally speaking. I don’t do math or percentages or the like, but I am 99.9% sure that the guy who waved at me jogging this morning has not analyzed the situation like I did, but that is 99.9% fine by me. The other .01% wishes that all the rest of humanity was weird like me and thought about this stuff. See, there I go again – wishing for a commonality.