Last night I had a date, but this blog isn’t about that.
My date is studying to be a doctor and so we were talking about the volunteer work I do with Alzheimer’s and Dementia patients.
I was telling him about how when I walk in to the nursing home the residents will usually be sitting in the common area with vacant stares, seemingly lost to the world, but as soon as you make eye contact, smile, and greet them, they come alive.
But this isn’t such a surprising thing, people want to be seen.
My last blog was about being dumped and wanting people to recognize me as a person, but I think this extends to all areas of life people want to be seen.
On my way to work I pass a lot of homeless people, I usually divert eye contact and continue on with my day, but today I couldn’t help but think about this one woman as I walked by her. She was invisible to the world. Wandering around on her own and so very clearly alone. No one spoke to her, everyone avoided her, including me.
It wouldn’t have taken much for me to smile and acknowledge that I saw her, but I didn’t.
There are so many invisible people that we take for granted in our lives. I know I’m not the only one caught up in my daily commute missing out on the people who work to make my day better, but who I rarely bat an eye to. The train attendees, the people cleaning the platforms, and many others who I haven’t seen yet.
We do this with strangers, and it’s excusable because we don’t owe them anything right?
But we also do this with our friends and acquaintances.
We label people so that we can understand them and then we lose the opportunity to really see them for all the dimensions they have, just like us.
For the longest time I was trying to figure out who I was and was doing a lot of self-development, but in the meantime I was missing out heaps on the people in my life and who they are.
That’s not to say that over the past few years I wasn’t taking interest in my friends and their lives, but I think that I should have been investing more.
I’ve heard a lot of people do this. They see someone physically, but don’t really ever place them in reality. If one of my friends meets another in a certain context, for example – out partying, they might comment to me how that friend of mine is a party girl/guy. This isn’t necessarily a bad label, but labels limit us from seeing all the other qualities of the person.
Once someone is the ‘drunk girl’, ‘fitness buff, or ‘flaky friend,’ people feel like they know who that person is and they don’t see all the other parts.
And I think that’s what most people want. To be seen as the multi-layered and diverse people that we are. To be seen.
Because when we acknowledge and see people and give them a chance to interact with us without assumptions, we are able to see the humanness in others.
We are privileged to be young, to have our memories, to have a roof over our heads, and consistent meals. There are many people who don’t have these things and when they don’t we marginalize them.
We place the old and forgetful people away in homes so all the pretty young people can run around unhindered by the burden of age and the fragility of life. And we complain about the homeless people sleeping all over our city, how dare they pollute the aesthetic of this beautiful city-scape with their stench and begging – reminding us on every corner of the excess we live with.
We are so privileged to have the lives we do, regardless of whatever our current limitations are, let’s not lose sight of all the people who are lacking in this privilege. Let’s see who is really around us and realize we can have an impact in the way we choose to live in this world
The other day at my yoga studio one of the teachers saw me, went back in to the office, and came out with a yoga mat.
He said, “I see you struggling on the mats we have here sometime, you can have this one.”
I politely declined because I actually own one, but leave it at home. I felt really over joyed. Even though I didn’t get the yoga mat, it was nice to know that he had noticed and seen me.
As we say in yoga “the divine in me bows to the divine in you.”
Aka … Namaste
kittyscause 