Dogs and Sticks Outside

I spent the morning with my son and two dogs cutting down some huge old bushes that died in the big freeze last year. The dogs, plus a toddler always make anything to do with sticks interesting, to say the least! There was a good bit of tug of war, someone getting upset that someone else stole a stick, and a whole lot of fun chaos.

In the meantime, while they were distracted with tree limbs and stumps, I was able to cut down and tear out 3 massive bushes making room for some new plants to take their place.

I was thinking about how something so simple can have such a positive effect on my son, and realizing the unstructured “play” with a little work (helping me carry branches to a pile) is adding to his life experiences. Each of these experiences, including some struggle, carrying heavier branches, chasing down the dogs to get a branch back in the pile, falling over and having to get back up help him build more resilience and ability to handle more situations. He may be too young to notice, but he gets to see the fruit of his labor in a giant pile of sticks and branches he enjoyed climbing through.

Lately, I’ve been meeting with people one on one at the gym and catching up with them, their lives, and how we can help through the gym and leveraging our community of people. Each time I get to talk with someone for more than a few minutes I realize how much I enjoy getting to know people deeper than just in class or via coaching them in workouts. There is so much beyond the gym and yet so much the gym and community effects!

Each interaction we have with each other is a chance to encourage each other through common experiences and empathize with each other as we’ve gone through similar situations in life. We build a better understanding of the world around us and what other people are doing, thinking, accomplishing and struggling through. We exchange ideas, many we may not agree with, but because we can sit and talk, without anyone influencing our emotions (aka, news channels!!), we grow and see different perspectives healthily.

In the first chapter of the book “The Shallows” by Nicholas Carr, he talks about how the internet, media and digital interactions is rewiring our ability to process information. We’ve become perpetual skimmers and are slowly, steadily losing our ability to focus on deeper reading of longer books or even long format conversations. We’ve been trained to read headlines and make immediate assumptions and opinions based on those headlines, without understanding or appreciating the underlying context. The more time we spend digitally, the more binary we become; things either are or they aren’t, and there is no grey area to discuss or understand. Because of this, the world is becoming a far more polar place where there is no room for meeting in the middle and engaging, let alone being friends with or friendly to those with differing opinions, beliefs, or even facts found outside of the accepted institutions or narratives.

He points out how the long term effects of these mental and emotional changes are as yet, still mostly unknown, although the short term is fairly apparent. Most of us understand too much digital interaction and less face to face time is detrimental to our development over time, especially when dosed with so many small, seemingly inconsequential digital interactions each day.

Sitting down with another human being over a cup of coffee tears down this cage around our thinking and manipulation of our opinions (intended or not, the effects are apparent) and lets us connect, relate, disagree, and build healthy, real relationships. Even a few minutes of real “how are you” conversation can help your brain develop better abilities to connect, interact and grow good quality friendships. These interactions also have massive effects on your mental health and help reverse the negative effects screen time, or “headline time” as I see it these days, have on our emotions. Getting to the gym and joking around about anything and everything, including “off limits” topics allows you to see the humanity in each other, enjoy a sense of humor, burn stress, and hear differing opinions in a far more healthy way than via a screen online.

Just like the small interactions of working together with my son (and the dogs!) to cut down some bushes and learn about gravity, opposition (dogs stealing branches) and hard work build, over time, into a strong foundation of work ethic and resilience, and a sense of humor (again, dogs!), so do our in person, personal interactions with each other. We all need more of it, and I’d encourage you to make a cup of coffee —- a GOOD cup of coffee with nothing else in it! :) —- and have a conversation with a friend or acquaintance longer than 5 minutes. The best way to start is “how are you?” - and really, genuinely listen. You never know what you may learn or how you may be encouraged!

“By wisdom a house is built

and by understanding it is established;

through knowledge its rooms are filled

with every precious and beautiful treasure.”

Proverbs 23: 3-4

“Train up a child in the way he should go,

and when he is old he will not depart from it.”

Proverbs 22:6