The Tide is Changing
One of the things that I will continue to champion in this blog is the meeting of the public’s yearning for authenticity and human connection.
There is a tide changing in this country that is allowing for more vulnerability and openness about who we are and how we feel. Increasingly pockets of our society are moving away from the smooth, slick veneer that I know that I felt coming of age in the 80’s was required in order to be taken seriously.
To show ourselves, to not have the most perfectly polished answer, to show real emotion, to admit when we’re wrong takes a tremendous amount of courage when we’ve been cultivated to always have it together and when we are all engaged in a political system that appears to have high stakes for perfectionism.
So I love observing where this veneer is breaking down in this country. This fun, light video about the Hug Campaign shows an example of this. From the website:
Free hugs is a real life controversial story of Juan Mann, A man whos sole mission was to reach out and hug a stranger to brighten up their lives.
In this age of social disconnectivity and lack of human contact, the effects of the Free Hugs campaign became phenomenal.
As this symbol of human hope spread accross the city, police and officials ordered the Free Hugs campaign BANNED. What we then witness is the true spirit of humanity come together in what can only be described as awe inspiring.
Close to 2.5 million people have viewed this video.
This hunger for human connection is real. So not only is there this huge opportunity to address public ills like child abuse through first recgonizing one another’s humanity (see previous post) but there is also the opportunity in public life to even more deeply be who we are, not for votes, but for the sake of engaging and connecting with people to better serve them.
Citizens are often so critical that it can be scary to not look like everybody else. But I contend that when we as leaders let go of looking the way we “should” that we give more room for the uniqueness of who we are and our emotions to show through and that we are actually more trustworthy because we’re being who we truly are.