Push Through
On How to Know A Person by David Brooks
Introduction
I hope everyone had a good holiday season. As I stumble back into the swing of things, I’ll keep this post brief. I hope you’re all still busy growing your belt size with holiday chocolates. I know I am.
The past couple of weeks, the main book I read was David Brooks new book How To Know a Person.
Life Notes
I went back home for the holidays, which, though normal most years, carried a special weight for me last year, as I hadn’t been home (Spokane, Washington) since before a little strand of DNA upset the world order almost four years ago.
It was really nice to be home. It was nice to be cold for the first time in a long time.
It also got me thinking about what I was talking about a couple of posts ago: my tendency to have a certain amount of difficulty making connections with people.
Visiting home after so long is both familiar and strange. In many ways, the place felt more familiar than I expected it to.
It turns out it is I, and how I relate to the place, that feels different.
Things keep feeling smaller than I remember. The kitchen of my childhood home, the streets. My world is a lot bigger now than it was when I was growing up. And it’s hard to ignore that I’ve changed a lot.
I think I used to see the world as a hostile place. Or at least one to be suspicious of. And the world I inhabited was limited to my home town, so being here reminds me of that. Now, I see it differently.
Things here used to feel closed to me. Now, they feel more open. Which, again, doesn’t so much feel like a change in the place as much as a change in how I exist in the world.
Which brings me to How To Know a Person.
AKA:
The Book Part
David Brooks and I seem to have a lot in common in the respect of connecting with people.
The book chronicles his journey trying to find out how to push past the thinking tendency in him to the feeling part. To the ways we can break down barriers our society asks us to impose upon each other.
I’ve been going on a similar journey myself for a while. It seems simple enough but…. It’s not.
He has a lot of specific advice that I probably should have written down. But I didn’t. Maybe I’ll go back through it.
The main takeaway for me:
1. people are more willing to tell their stories than we think they are and don’t know how much they’ll enjoy it.
2. Be someone who lights people up rather than closing them down.
His journey is incomplete, as is mine, but it’s a great read for those of us with that feeling after an interaction with someone that something is… missing.
It’s a feeling I’ve had a lot. I’m starting to have a bit less.
What I realized being home is that I imposed a lot of rules on myself that didn’t actually exist.
Conclusion
I used to think that when you feel resistance to something it meant that it should be resisted, or that it is is dangerous. I’m starting to see that it just means there something to be pushed through.
I find myself saying to myself more and more often. Push through.
Happy Wednesday, everyone. Push through.
I loved this, thank you for sharing something so personal about yourself. I have always thought of you as cautious, but your observation that you saw danger in your resistance is so reflective. Perhaps you were wary and observant and justifiably skeptical. :) Push through.