The Missing Piece: Connection

“If you have everything imaginable, but you have no connection to other people, what do you have?”

— Peter Attia

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Dear Friends,

It is always nice when one of the world’s experts on longevity understands there are deeper dimensions to life than living longer.

Years ago, some friends and I were on a 3-month environmental walk across Japan, and each night we had to find shelter and gather cardboard to sleep on. One night we found a half-mile long covered atrium in a mall, and put down our cardboard to sleep.

In the middle of the night, I heard someone come near us, and I woke up that next morning to see a homeless man leaving. Of all the places he could put his cardboard, he had put his cardboard right next to ours, and slept very close to us … I guess simply to feel less alone.

And it hit me what a shared need this is: we seek to be close to other people.

What if …

As Attia asks, what if we could have everything we ever wanted, all the money and power we hoped for, but no connection to other people, no true friends … what kind of life would that be?

I actually know people for whom the entire focus of their lives was moving up the corporate ladder, and later in life realize, “Ok, I have this big house, this great car, but something is missing.”

The missing piece: authentic human connection.

Making Space for Human Connection

I am reading Jonathan Haidt’s new book, The Anxious Generation, which I highly recommend, and he and others point out, there is a significant difference when kids play together in person versus play via a screen … and we adults may not be that different.

How willing are we to put away our phone or computer and talk to someone at a cafe? Or drive to see a dear friend in person?

If human connection matters, how are we each fostering that?

May you have find ways to nourish this today — to see, connect, and make space for this shared human experience that seems to be such a need.

As I was finishing this piece in a cafe, a person came up to me and said, “I know you from Wisdom 2.0 zooms!“ Human connection found me…

Also Wisdom 2.0 2024 starts tomorrow … digital tickets are still available here >>>

Blessings,

SOREN