Life is interesting because all roads lead to difficulty. You can choose to impose difficulty on yourself through intentional effort. Or you can choose difficulty imposed on you by life due to the passage of time and inevitable change. Either path is difficult. When it comes to interacting with people and developing social relationships, you can choose your difficulty or have it chosen for you by life. In this article we will consider the dangers of modern comforts, the two different choices that every individual has and why the path of least resistance is NEVER the answer.
Danger in modern comforts
Remember back to your early childhood when you were on the play ground interacting with other kids. You did not have to think much about it, curiosity got the best of you. You did not care what adults thought or even your fellow kids. As you got older though, that boldness diminished through socialization and the fear of rejection.
In our modern society today, this fear of rejection has been exacerbated by the development of technological advances. You can live your life completely free of interacting with another human being. You can work remotely from home, have your groceries and food delivered to the house, and have unlimited access to entertainment in the form of movies, TV shows and games. You could go a couple months without interacting with anyone besides the occasional forced Work zoom call. As with all things in life though, if you don’t use it, you lose it. When you don’t use social skills, you lose it and that fear of rejection and social anxiety is quadruped.
So the question is, how long can you live in isolation peacefully? The answer to that question varies for everyone but eventually life will catch up to you. We (the human animal) are social creatures and need to feel seen by others. Avoiding contact with people over time leads to the development of depression and persistent anxiety. If you already had depression and anxiety, it will get worse.
Bringing us back to the topic “why should you choose your difficulty”? It is difficult to cultivate social skills and learn to interact with people. But it is also difficult to avoid cultivating this skill and live in isolation. The difference between the two paths can be examined by considering when the difficulty shows up and the projected progress overtime.
The path of avoiding social interactions:
This path is easy initially because you are comfortable and feel safe when you do not have to interact with people. That anxiety you feel when you talk with strangers is non existent in the comfort of your own home. But over time, the little courage you had when you were forced to talk to people will vanish. Also your comfort zone will shrink so that even small minor interactions over the phone or people knocking on your door randomly will become daunting. But it gets worse. The depression and anxiety will set in and be amplified with each passing day. That anxiety you used to feel talking to strangers will morph into an existential anxiety. So that even in the comfort of your own home, in your own bed you will feel anxious, unsafe and a sense of dread. (Obviously there are other factors at play that contribute to depression and anxiety. Isolation is just one of the many).
The path of cultivating social skills:
This path is difficult initially because you have to confront your fear of interacting with people and talking to them. You feel anxiety in every social interaction and relief when it is over. But over time, that anxiety will start to go away because the brain gets comfortable with any situation it is forced to contend with repeatedly. Now layer on the power of intentional effort and we are cooking with gas. This entails that you make up your mind that social skills is something you need to thrive in the human society. This conscious thought leads you to make an intentional commitment to yourself to get good at it. You will need to put in the effort to read books on social interactions, watch educational videos on the subject, get mentorship or any other resources available. You discipline yourself to study your patterns of interacting with people and then figure out ways you can always improve on it. Over time not only will your anxiety in social situations go away, but your confidence will be sky high.
Conclusion
Everyone experiences anxiety during human interactions but only a few are successful at overcoming it. To overcome anxiety in human interactions, requires that you make a commitment to yourself to be intentional in your interactions. Talk to the cashier at the checkout line. Speak with the barrister at Starbucks. Shoot, walk into Starbucks in person rather than going through the drive thru. Make small talk with people wherever you encounter them. Your intent is to improve these skills through repeated exposure and engagement. Reading books and watching educational videos will ensure that the skills you improve on are quality skills that work in human interactions. No point being really good at the wrong things.
Ultimately you get to choose. You can choose the difficulty that comes from forcing yourself to get better at talking to people. Or you can choose the difficulty that comes overtime due to your comfort zone shrinking.
Both options are available.
Choose wisely.