Take a Chance 🐈⬛
Happy Fearless Friday, Friends!
While I usually drop into your inbox each Friday morning with a hit of habit data and some questions that hopefully make you think about life and what you want more and less of, in light of the polarizing electric charge we’ve collectively experienced, it feels important to tell a story.
This week I met my neighbor, Nicola. I guess she’s been my neighbor for years, but I’ve never seen her. I know where her balcony is since I can see a corner of it from where I sit and write these newsletters. But we live on different floors and have never crossed paths. On Monday, I heard a thud and wondered what caused it. A few hours later, I heard a woman calling for an animal. That’s when I learned that the thud I’d heard was Nicola’s cat, Chance (pictured in all his glory here), lunging from his perch to chase a mocking squirrel. Over the next few days, Nicola and I, along with a host of other neighbors who were once strangers, became a mission-driven team. It had all the drama of an epic tale: tiptoeing in the dark past sleeping children, fences scaled by courageous young women, bribery (with kibble of course), and people of different cultures, backgrounds, races, religions, and political ideology, coming together to get a job done. Finally, after three days and a chain of heroics, Chance was found.
Meanwhile, people all over our country turned out in record numbers to voice their differing opinions. It felt like its own battle- between good and bad and right and wrong. There were moments of fear, frustration, elation, and maybe even some hope.
As it was all going down, I was studying the 22nd annual Edelman Trust Barometer, which shows that we are more distrustful than we’ve ever been. We don’t trust companies, governments, or NGOs. The only place our trust has deepened is inside our tightest little bubbles.
We run into our bubbles for safety and comfort, but we are pack animals and we need each other. So if the world is feeling a little scary, distant or overwhelming right now, maybe this is the moment to say hi to a neighbor, to connect on some common purpose, or even just to look into another human being's eyes. This is how trust builds, this is how things get better. We reach out, we vulnerably ask for help, we make connections, and we get things done.
Maybe this week we can all be a little more like Nicola, and take a chance on Chance.
Aransas
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