I'm wearing a shirt that says "Tomorrow Needs You."
It's a cotton black t-shirt, with orange lettering, and a graphic image of the sun rising behind it.
My friend Jamie's wonderful charity designed it and gave it to me. I wear it often. It's soft and has a tangible feeling of something good just sort of radiating off it.
Today, I'm wearing it, and standing in line for an iced coffee, and the woman behind the counter says "that's a great message"
"What is?"
She points at my chest. "Your shirt. That's amazing"
"Oh, thank you."
I had forgotten that I was wearing something people might notice. Perhaps, one layer deeper than that, I forgot people could notice.
In an era of overstimulation, wearing a t-shirt with some words printed on it seems like the last thing you might command someones conscious attention. But I'm happy for the conversation and the tiny piece of connection.
I take my coffee and go.
It's a few hours later, and a man in a dress shirt crossing the street past me nods towards my shirt and flashes his thumb up.
Four hours after that, it's a younger kid on a skateboard. As he rolls past, his wheels grinding the concrete, he squints to focus on what the words say. "That's positive energy right there, my man!"
And in each and every one of these micro-interactions, without fail, there's this tiny part of me that is continually surprised.
Haven't we all lost the ability to talk to each other?
Haven't we all stopped noticing each others' existence?
That's what we hear everyday. We're taught- conditioned, even- now to be cynical. Assume the worst. Find our differences. Be outraged about how we are or are not alike.
And yet, people do notice.
People talk. People engage and connect around a shared message.
Tomorrow Needs You.
Conversations have to be started by someone. And sometimes I forget that.
We all want to be in a great conversation. Or to recognize a shared experience with someone else. Or to feel connected to an idea or a cause bigger than just our own individual identity and the events of our own life path.
Without that, and without even those small moments of shared connection, I feel lonely. Or worse, hopeless.
But with them, I feel like I am in fact part of a community. That human beings might be running around one another all day, largely ignoring the stranger right beside us, until there's an invitation in to a conversation and we stop to notice each other. To share an idea. Or a belief. Or a kindness.
We evolved from gathering around stories and narratives and a shared future vision for what the next day might look like.
And maybe we still need it as much today.
To orient ourselves towards the version of the world we want to be a part of yes, but also to remember that we aren't in it alone.
That being alive isn't just a singular experience, that we are meant to embark by ourselves.
That we don't turn towards others from a place of weakness and insufficiency, but that we connect because it's fundamentally human. Essential to our origin, our soul, our survival.
That being alive is just as much about own unique, specific story as it is the larger story of what it means to coexist alongside someone else's own unique story. We all want to find our way to the stories that stir up something inside of us and to meet the people who believe the same things we do.
But, someone has to start the conversation. Always.
Someone has to raise their hand and say "this is what matters to me."
Someone has to show the world their values. Someone has to be vulnerable, even if it's in the smallest of ways.
Someone has to let others look at who they are and what they think.
Someone has to take a risk.
The words we say, the things we believe, all end up acting as signals. To invite others in. To let people know what kind of stories matter to us and what kind of things we care about. We forget that whenever we want deeper connection, it starts with us. And so instead of saying the things we want to, we look to the person beside us and hope they'll say it instead.
Because we're conflict avoidant. We're risk avoidant.
We're afraid to show ourselves, truly, without pretence and with all the possibility for rejection.
Wearing a t-shirt with some words printed on it might not seem like much of a statement. And to most, it isn't.
Countless people walked past me while I was wearing that shirt and didn't notice, didn't say a word, didn't care.
But that's the default. And the default isn't what we remember.
What we remember are the exceptions to the rule.
The people who did care. The ones who did say something. The people who show up.
It's always going to be easier not to raise your hand. And it's always going to be easier not to say anything. Not to be the first to speak.
Because, that's just the default.
We're taught to play it safe, to avoid potential failure, to keep our beliefs hidden away from others. But, someone always has to start the conversation.
And the problem with hiding, is that nobody can see you. And we need you.
Tomorrow Needs You.