Taking The Risk By: Karen Human Relations: Learning to Navigate Relationships. This was the name of an actual course I saw listed as a community workshop. Really? We need a class now to teach us how to get along with others? But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that with the onset of so much technology and human interaction becoming more anonymous, perhaps we do. I know for me, human relations have never been a problem. Ask anyone who knows me and they will tell you that I can and do make friends anywhere. Give me a long line in Wal-Mart and I will come out with a few new friends. Living in Chicago I have tried to tamper it down, but still, wherever I am I seem to attract conversation with strangers. This drives people who know me and worry about my safety absolutely crazy! Recently I was on the train going out to O’Hare to rent a car. The train was crowded and I was dragging my suitcase behind me. There was an older woman doing the same right behind me, and she started telling me where she was going and what she was doing. In the 45 minute train ride I knew her whole life story, and when her train stop came she hugged me and told me it was the most enjoyable train ride she had had in a long time. On my return trip, I helped a mother with two young kids onto the train. She was so grateful, she began telling me how she had 4 kids under 6, and was finishing her medical degree. Her son somehow ended up on my lap, and when they got off I got a huge hug and kiss from the sweet two year old, who told me he would miss me. I know that living in the city I need to be more careful. I need to not be so trusting, and so open with people. But there is something in me that just can’t switch that part of me off. I am a story gatherer. I think every single person I come in contact with has something to share, a story to be told, and I want to hear it. I am of the opinion that human beings have become so polarized in our Facebook, texting world that they are just dying to be heard. Even if it means talking to the strange white lady on the el. All it usually takes is a smile and a kind hello, and they start talking. I never intend for it to happen. I am usually armed with one of my textbooks, ready to study and just ride the el. But inevitably it happens. I am in awe of what people want to share when someone will just listen. Now, I will say that none of these people are anyone that I will probably ever see again, the city is just too big. I have fought with loneliness in the city, searched for the deeper connection. Most of my dearest friends are far away, and I have to settle for the phone calls, the Facebook chats, and the texting. When I want human interaction I have to be brave, and go try new things in the city alone. I have made a few friends in the big bad city, but everyone is just so busy. So rather than sit around and wait for someone, I just go. I am so social by nature, that the solitary life has proven a challenge. But what I have found is that wherever I go, I find someone who wants to talk. None of that replaces the need for a deeper connection. I just can’t get the hang of settling for cyber chats and quick messages. I know there is a need. I know that even with me, my schedule is so crazy that sometimes a text or a Facebook message has to suffice. But still, I am left wishing for more. I think humans by nature are created to connect. We are meant to reach out to another human being, and say: Here I am, can you accept me? We are so vulnerable. We want to love and to be loved, and yet we fear reaching out. We fear the rejection that can come with extending your open hands with your heart wide open. So we hold back. We wait. We try to make sure that we won’t be rejected, but in doing so we miss so much. We miss the good stuff of finding someone we never knew before, who will look at us and say: Hey I know you…I was meant to be your friend all along. The one our heart recognizes as someone who was always meant to be there. Is it a risk? Yes, absolutely. Can we be hurt? Oh, in so many ways. But we also can gain so much. Every single person has a story to tell. Every single person just wants to be heard, and to be accepted. It is a part of us what makes us human. The hurt is part of it and the rejection too. But then there are those moments that you find someone who you make that instant connection with, and that is the stuff! My daughter told me about a girl she met in school, and how quickly they have become close because of shared experiences. What if she had not risked that contact? Had not risked opening herself up? As I begin to take that risk to get to know the people God so graciously sends me, I need to remember to be brave. To not shy away because I am afraid of the hurt. To remember that to risk is to also to gain. It is easy to talk to someone on the train. Someone you know you will never see again. There is no risk there at all. But to risk connecting with someone, to hope that there will be the potential for a true friend, there is absolutely nothing more worthwhile. Take the risk, take the time. Listen to the stories, and be prepared to have your heart changed.