We're Having Sloppy Joes Again?: When Habits Become Boring

This final post on making connection a habit is going to be about the unspoken truth of habitual connection.  It can get boring.  The same people doing the same thing, over and over?  After a few months, things can get stale.  You’ll have the same political debates, the same discussions over child rearing and work issues, the same roll-your-eyes dad jokes, and probably the same exact meal a few times too.

And that’s how it should be.

Connection is not going to be new and exciting, the next big thing.  I cannot emphasize enough that to become connection builders, we must realize that there is nothing glamorous about being there for other people.  Building something real and true is rarely about how it appears on the outside.

Community exists as maintenance work.  We’re not trying to solve a medical mystery or put someone on Mars.  We are working in the boiler room of society.  Without connection builders, people fall through the cracks and get forgotten.  Children’s small achievements go unnoticed.  The people who work to take care of our trash, serve us food, and clean up after us remain unseen.  Without our steady hand pushing back against that indifference, people live in pain, ourselves included.

The object of our efforts isn’t very exciting and few people will even notice what we’re doing.  In fact, if you’re doing this connection thing well, it’s possible you might never get any praise at all.  Because our outcomes are rarely spectacular, the important element of building community is the process we go through to get there.

If I spend my time in my garden trying to make my vegetable plants look gorgeous and perfect in every way, they’re not going to produce. The way I garden matters – am I thorough?  Am I gentle?  Do I think about and consider where and when to plant things?  Have I put in the effort to nurture my soil in the winter and early spring?  If I don’t get the process right, the outcome is inherently flawed and I get nothing for all my hard work. I have made this mistake in both gardening and relationships and I regret it deeply. (More for people than plants; there’s always next spring.) I’ve learned the hard way that how you do things matters far more than what you do.

So build a habit of connection, but as you do it, make sure that you’re doing not simply to become connected (we all know those people).  Make sure your connections are done in a way that nurtures and honors both you and others.