One of my favorite articles in The Onion shows a picture of a man dressed up to leave for work, with his hand on the doorknob and his ear against the door. The headline reads, “Exit From Apartment Delayed by 20 Seconds to Avoid Pleasantries With Neighbor.”
It made me laugh because I know I’ve done exactly that, many times. The article has been shared thirty thousand times on Facebook, so apparently it’s a thing for many people too. Now that I think about it, my neighbors have probably done the same thing to me.
What’s interesting is that I never really decided to do that. I never consciously thought about avoiding pleasantries with the neighbors, I just got into the habit of slowing down if I heard shuffling outside, sometimes hesitating at the door until it goes away.
After seeing this Onion article, whenever I notice that neurotic impulse avoid the neighbors, I feel silly and just go whenever I’m done getting ready. Somehow, I had made a “thing” out of having hallway interactions with the neighbors.
Because I apparently spent the last two years avoiding my neighbors, there isn’t much to these “pleasantries” when they do happen. I don’t really know these people, so there’s nothing to catch up on. I just give them a genuine “Good morning,” and go. I feel like I’ve solved a problem that never should have been a problem.
Shrinking your world
Now that it’s summer I go for a bike ride almost every evening. I live in a semi-urban area, consisting of a strip of restaurants and bars sandwiched by two grids of well-treed residential streets. I love the residential streets. They’re lined with pre-war two-storey homes, with old style trimmings and no stucco. Every night I pick a nearby neighborhood to explore and sort of meander my way there, without needing to take any particular route.
The other day I was heading to a neighborhood across the main strip, and I noticed that up ahead, the cross-street I was on passed a busy restaurant patio.
I guess I have a negative association with these patio scenes. I love my neighborhood, except for its loud, Thursday-night bar crowds that leave cigarette butts and empty bottles behind. Instead of proceeding past, I noticed myself turning around and taking a detour down a back lane.
As I was riding down the back lane I realized that I had just made a Thing out of avoiding certain streets because they require me to pass by a noisy patio. Next time I’m not going to worry about it.
It seems like this isn’t something worth thinking about. One street’s as good as another — I might has well have taken the back lane. But it seems completely absurd when you realize that this silly little aversion actually made me physically stop my bike and turn around to take the back lane instead. Obviously I’ve made this dislike of patios into something that matters, something that will put a little bit of my world effectively off-limits.
As with the pleasantries in the hallway, this kind of thing was probably happening for a long time before I was even conscious of why I took certain detours.
It makes me wonder how many other things I’ve made into Things — situations that “raise the alarm” in some way, that restrict my possibilities by making aversion the deciding factor in what I do.
Big Things
We do this a lot. We make tiny aversions into long-lasting Things in our lives. If it only affected which streets you feel free to ride your bike on, it probably wouldn’t matter. But it affects big things too: what careers seem feasible to you, whether you can pull off a major goal or not, how healthy you can expect to be, how happy you can expect to be. When you let aversion call the shots once, it can quickly become the new norm.
A Thing is a wall. It’s a location in your day-to-day life where you now have to change direction, because you let it become a Thing. The most direct route, you’ve determined, is no longer a real option for you.
The fewer things you let become a Thing for you, the more freedom you experience. You probably know people who make a Thing out of nearly everything, and you probably know people who seem to be able to do almost anything without much trepidation.
For certain stretches of my life, I made a Thing about activities that I now consider vital to my well-being. In particular, I’ve made a Thing out of writing. It was always a fight, even though it’s something I need to do. It’s much less of a Thing than it was, but still a bit of a Thing.
I also made a Thing out of exercise for many years. I always approached it with resisting and bargaining and dreading. Now it’s really not much of a Thing any more, and I’m actually fit for the first time in forever.
This mostly happens under the radar. We feel and act on aversions without even noticing why we’re taking a little detour instead of going the more direct way. I had no idea I was scared of my neighbors, just like back in college I probably wasn’t conscious of the limits I had placed on how happy I could expect to be.
But sometimes — when you’re about to not answer the phone when a certain person calls, or when you’re about to leave the dishes for tomorrow — you can catch yourself and decide that you’re not going to make a Thing out of it this time.
***
Well done David. Kind of like ‘just do it’. I’m not too buddy-buddy with my neighbors. It’s usually nothing more than a mere, “Hi, how you doing?” But it is something I’ve lamented and been meaning to improve. So I became excited when new neighbors moved in and told myself to leave the familiar neighbors on the backburner for now. I told myself, “Great, a fresh, new start!” I had thoughts of introducing myself, giving them a house-warming gift, etc. My eyes widened as the perfect opportunity arose just when they were moving in with boxed items. But no. I froze. Again. Just a simple, “hey”. As if they were familiar people I’ve seen many times. Didn’t even offer them a hand as they looked like they were managing alright. The problem is: beforehand I was planning on saying/doing something. The event of I knew I should say/do something. Afterward, I regretted not saying/doing something. How then, did the freezing find its way and manage to creep in to what seemed like a seamless, airtight battle plan? Seems because I’ve made this thing into a Thing. I then eerily ran into them again the next day and involuntarily held the door open for them as they hauled in their kitchen appliance…
This made me laugh, thank you. Sounds like me.
In any case, holding the door can go a long way to feeling like neighbors.
So true, David…
This is so connected with being there now – feeling your life at every moment.
I have been creating Things a lot and now (when I can help myself) I understand that I create monsters that nobody else sees, because people mostly live in their own lives and minds.
I do lots of things and with universally good feedback, but invariably these monsters that I create make me feel failure that nobody else sees – probably because they exhaust me before I can evaluate a result and possibly for other unidentified reasons. And I don’t quite get to feeling ok about my results. Now I am at the changing career moment (long delayed) and I am trying to keep my fears at bay at least until I get into real trouble :) As of now, I think most of my fights have been with myself, in my mind.
When I control myself, I know I’ll find solutions. When I lose it, I panic for allt he things that can go wrong, based on both uncertainty and experience.
I just hope I win the battle.
Thank you for sharing,
Ioana
Great insights into how *my* mind is working too hard for its own good, too, David! …and I’m right there with you, Ioana ~ “We can do this!”
Fears are okay. They’re going to be there for a while. I quit my job ten months ago and I only now feel like I’m over my fear that my career change won’t work out. Fear can live concurrently with progress.
I actually am trying to accept that some of my fears will always be there because I know I am a perfectionist and demand everything of myself, but I am positive that I can improve. This due to better knowing myself, being more aware and, why not, doing something that I (hope and expect) am more comfortable with. I think I have given too much attention so far to how I do things and less to the things I was doing.
Good spirits to you, David, Karen, everyone !
Hi David! Thanks for shedding light on one more dark corner of my consciousness. A admire how acute your attention should be to notice and formulate all the things you point to in your articles. Your mind is truly beautiful, seriously.
I guess this resistance in “small” things actually has real roots:
• Meeting neighbours — animal roots of social relations. Meeting a neighbouring fellow dog or a fellow lion may end up in deadly fight of losing my “pride”.
• Working out — expecting low financial income due to having no good strategy → need to save energy.
And I frequently hear this kind of approach, like “oh that silly mind is scared of ghosts it creates”. While technically it’s correct, such behavior is rooted in our animal origins and is… pretty systemically justified. In those days it was very helpful. I always notice my cat getting alert and hiding every time a stranger enters my home. At home it’s just uneasiness for her, but in the streets it’s dangerous.
However I agree that the aversion reaction is way exaggerated. What we are avoiding is simple uneasiness, while the avoiding itself affects our fate greatly.
I am sure being alert and observant to this mechanism of mind can dissolve such situations. I just pray I could have the necessary amount of attention :)
Thanks Sergey. We are tuned to be reactive and averse a lot of the time. But as you say, these reactions are needlessly sensitive for the modern world. My neighbors don’t really present a danger…. I think :)
Spot on again David!
I’ve come to realise that living within the expectations and approval of others is limiting. Or at least my expectations of their expectations – mostly they are too busy with their own affairs to be concerned about me.
Today’s article shows that one of those ‘others’ who limit my present actions is my own past self. Trouble is those past lessons have been unconsciously built into my daily life.
You’re right, catching yourself in these unconscious responses is the key. I try to put a ‘beat’ between the ‘trigger’ and the following action so that I can consciously decide what is the best thing to do. Not easy to do, but it gets easier with practice.
That’s a good way of looking at it. We respond to the fears of our earlier selves. You might like this post if you haven’t read it yet:
https://www.raptitude.com/2012/07/the-person-you-used-to-be-still-tells-you-what-to-do/
I love how you phrased it “at least my expectations of their expectations.” My take on this–and I have struggled with this aspect for many years–is that most people really don’t give a shit (to use one of David’s blogs) when it comes down to it about our “world”. This realization can take a long time to evolve in order for us to see this in our own journey.
Hah! I just caught myself resisting running the dishwasher NOW, instead of in the morning when there’ll be another bowl and spoon to put in – even though if I wait, my coffee cup won’t make the cut!
Why did Brain expend the energy to make those several (admittedly tiny, but still distracting) decisions?? Aversion – to an extreme definition of “But – It’s not full”!
I have developed a Thing with dishes again, which started when I fell out of the habit of washing dishes by hand and using the dishwasher. Now the dish situation is in a perpetual state of “almost”.
dishwashers…..nasty little machines. So much nicer to feel that little stream of warm water, and scrub the plates, and meditate. much rather do that than let a machine do it for me. =) And good for you, digging the ‘patio’ scene now. You were missing out….Good for people watching. ha.
David,
One of my favorite quotes from my friend, K.C., is: “It ain’t nothin’ but a thing, darlin’. Now imagine that said with all of her beautiful southern style and it really works. I say it all of the time to myself now. “It ain’t nothin’ but a thing, darlin'”.
Ok, I’ve got it in my head now. The accent helps.
The thing that caught my eye in your article was the phrase ‘shrinking my world’. These little things we do, really does shrink our world. The interesting thing for me is that these are exactly the little things that we go out travelling to experience – chatting with random strangers, sitting at crowded patios, going to loud parties, checking out random and sometimes ugly architecture, and so on.
I love to travel and I am so much more open to all of these experiences when I travel – but I close off my world, shrinking it when I am back home.
Thanks for this reminder – I am going to notice when I do this in Toronto and cull the shrinking.
I noticed that when I was traveling too. There’s just no way to stay in your little world of familiar grooves and habits when you’re in a foreign place. So the world just seems bigger. But it stays permanently bigger, at least by a little bit, when I get home.
Thanks for reminding me of my bad habit of avoidance. I do this with several people and, oddly, with stores and restaurants. If I have one “bad” experience with anyone or anywhere, I unconsciously mark it and them “off-limits”. Sure, I dress it up with “logic” to make my response seem to be correct. But it is fear, pure and simple. If I would allow myself to stay open to all possibilities, perhaps my next encounter with that person would be pleasant. My next meal at that restaurant may be wonderful, etc. But I generally interpret everything as being about me personally. And then it is “never again”. Your article reminds me to pull back a bit and perhaps allow myself to experience things and people in spite of my fear. Living in this moment instead of the past would also be helpful.
>Your article reminds me to pull back a bit and perhaps allow myself to experience things and people in spite of my fear.
I guess it just comes down to challenging our aversions sometimes. Often they are built from one less-than-great experience. It can actually be fun recognize an aversion and then deliberately act in spite of it, just to see what happens. A lot of the time the experience isn’t just not bad, but it’s good, and it dispels the aversion forever. Kinds of food you think you don’t like is a great place to experiment. I did it with olives last year, after “not liking” them for the previous 25.
Another ah-ha! blog post. I’ve done the same thing with neighbors, and when I used to work, I avoided shortcuts through certain hallways in our building for fear of running into one of the VPs or the CEO. Today, I shrink my world at the grocery when I see someone I know by the produce and wander around until they’ve left so I can pick out some organic apples. Even when I’m doing this, I realize I am giving something up and being silly, but it’s become a habit. Your post today is a reminder that I don’t need to give others the power to shrink my world!
Haha we are so silly. It really is liberating to just go where you were going to go anyway, and let “run-ins” happen, if they’re going to happen.
Awesome, awesome, awesome!
Thanks Max
David,
Wonderful post. I totally identify. Over the years, much like you, I have done these “little experiments”. A simple one that comes to mind from your post is deeply imbedded in my psyche: ‘turn nouns into verbs’. When I do this, a series of interesting things happen. What? Most importantly it leads to a path that opens new possibilities for relating to both animate and inanimate objects.
Another is a mindfulness practice that others have also discovered. My version is: NAER = notice, allow, ease/examine, release. To practice this in moments of emotionality does two things, it decreases the intensity of the emotion and insight emerges.
Your blog has been a rich resource for me, affirming individual life experimentation and opening paths to connections with others. Again, like you, I struggle with graphophobia, and resistance to express thoughts in writing. I’m learning that it’s never too late to begin. My trouble is the large database of experiences to sort through! Your courage in “putting it out there” helps. Have fun in Ecuador!
Thanks Rob. Can you explain the “turn nouns into verbs” exercise? It sounds interesting.
Yeah, me too. I’m dying to know about the nouns –> verbs experiment now.
Take a noun (abstract ones are sometimes easier to use as examples, although once the pattern develops, it starts to flow), say “self”. Bring attention to the qualities that give rise to self and look more closely at the circumstances, decisions, and actions that give rise to the emergence of “self”. Internally I ask, “Who is “Rob” and how does he arise (and constantly change/adapt) through the patterns of actions he takes. Day to day simple patterns of actions that give rise to the uniqueness of Rob becoming Rob. The manner with which I walk, speak, eat, brush my teeth, have facial expressions, etc.; the sum total of the nuanced actions that define a “new” verb that would be “Robbing”. As I write this I am reminded of a common example: “Google”, and its emergent verb “Googling”. That one is very intuitive. Take that concept and apply it to any noun and see: 1. How does it feel? 2. What else is discovered about the nature of the noun?
This article has just opened my eyes and made me realise, that I have made a Thing out of emptying the dishwasher. I have done this to the point that it now represents all that is wrong in my life, from feeling unsupported by partner and children to not finding a fulfilling purposeful path in life. I resolve to no longer allow emptying the dishwasher to be a Thing in my life.
I’m glad you mentioned this, we’re all affected by that kind of interconnectedness all the time — certain tasks and objects become symbolic of our relationships with others and with ourselves.
Laundry often reminds me of my own persistent failures to be on top of recurring tasks in my life like, well laundry, but also cleaning and other kinds of necessary maintenance.
Being conscious of my reluctance to expand my comfort zone is half the battle in my little world sample of “1”. I work on it with the big things, but your post was a reminder that everyday low-level reluctance or avoidance matters too, and may even matter more than the obvious mega-battles with the self, because they affect our lives on a daily basis.
They’re insidious, aren’t they?
As a result of reading this post today, I’ve answered all my phone calls without letting them go to voicemail (my preferred type of social avoidance). Well, I’ve been having a pretty good day so far. Let’s see if I keep it up.
I am terrible with the phone, and I notice it’s gotten worse now that phone calls are becoming less common (as text messages and smart-phone email take over.) I think you’ve inspired me to go back to an uncomplicated “answer it just because it’s ringing” policy.
If your neighbor is one of those who pins you down for 10 minutes and asks questions like it is an interrogation, you tend to just take 20 seconds longer before opening the door instead of fighting through ;)
I’m convinced those people are here to teach me patience.
Sometimes there are totally rational reasons for preventing certain things from happening :)
Fine. I’ll go get the damn haircut already.
have you read “the flinch”
http://theflinch.com/
Hi all, I cannot relate to this ‘avoiding to exchanging pleasantries with strangers’. at all. I have always thrived meeting new people, I was called ‘the mayor the neighborhood’ where I used live. I meet people every evening during my walks by the river near Museum where I live in Philadelphia. I recently met group of young people frpm Pakistan and took their photo, and right after that group of turist from Bangladesh and we exchanged pleasantris and took each others photos. Maybe I am little too friendly, but I cannot help myself…I love meeting new people as each person brings a different experience and inshight into my view of humanity. Last evening on my walk I met a beautiful young woman from Dubai and again we talked exchanged photos and were delighted to have met. I have everybodys keys on my condo floor and go out of my way to greet new residents and tell them to feel free to call if they need anything. My openess to meeting new people has served me very well in my real estate profession, but it goes even beyond that, I am very good with children too, my friend’s and close neighbors 10 years ald boy loves to come over and have ‘a sleep over’. He loves the information we exchange on all kinds of topics, he was adoptied from Kazakstan and i am from former Yugoslavia so he thinks that’s the connection plus many other things such as love of art, music and nature. Anyway, I know that my acent also opens the door as so many people ask… where are you from? Once whan I was asked one too many times by a young african American teen “hey man, I like your accent man, where are you from?, and I looked at him and something told me to tell him what I really thought where we all come from, so I said ‘Where ever you are from, that’s where I am from’…he then looked at me with a surpries and said ‘where’s that man’? I said ‘cosmic dust, that’s where we all come from’. Well, he understood rifgt away and said ‘I love that man, cosmic dust, ha, so we are all come from the same place’? and I said…yes man, same place.
I definitely make a thing about answering the phone. I tend to always have it on silent and if I see a phone call coming in, I tend to let it go to voicemail. I think it goes back to some weird thing about being in control. You didn’t have pleasantries with your neighbor because maybe you were unconsciously afraid of not knowing what would happen.
This article has inspired me to try to not make a thing out of exercising. It will be tough hehe, well if I think it will be tough then I guess it will be.
David,
This article makes a lot of sense to me, and the title fits the topic perfectly. Usually when you make a thing out of something, it can become overwhelming to the extent that you end up putting all your energy into it but fall short into what you wanted the outcome to be because it was a forceful energy. You felt that you had to accomplish the goal and follow through, so maybe the work wasn’t as natural and great as it could have been if you just went with it and did that thing when you felt like it. It’s also like taking on many things at once because you want to be more productive rather than because you enjoy those things. It’s important to know the difference. I’m not sure if this is what you were getting at, what it’s what I thought about after reading the article.
On a side note, I’m thinking about starting a blog. I’m wondering where you get the pictures for your articles from? Do you actually take the pictures yourself..because they seem to complement your topics very well. I was considering taking pictures myself for each blog entry, but it does seem like a lot of work to do so.
Thanks for the article!
Hi David,
This is an amazing article. There are many people who can associate with what you have said. Personally, I feel that hesitations are the main sources of not reaching the level of what you can be. Making a thing out of something or bailing out of doing something is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If I don’t greet a stranger the first time, the next time there would be more hesitations, making the person more of a stranger. Those little hesitations are the ones that make my social life more awkward each passing day. Sure, one doesn’t need human interactions to ‘survive’, but we need them to ‘live’. Another thing that these hesitations do to me is lower my self-confidence. Low self-confidence leads to hesitations, and hesitations lead to lower self-confidence. Every time I dare to do something, though, a multitude of ‘what if’s?’ spiral my head till I opt out of doing them. My brain reasons out: After all, I wouldn’t want to do something I don’t enjoy… But no. I talk myself out of it. Hope I can someday find the courage in me to carry on with what I wish to do. This post is a good start that adds up to the encouragement factor. Thanks.
Great post.
“You probably know people who make a Thing out of nearly everything”
Oh yea! I find these people are either extreme worriers or awkward gits, depending on your viewpoint and the person in question. As usual though it helps more to focus within rather than what others are doing! I still have a list of things I have made into Things, and I should concentrate my efforts on dwindling that list down.
Have you heard of Lester Levenson? His philosophy for peace and happiness was summed up as, ‘no attachments and no aversions’. In other words, don’t fear anything and don’t cling to things. This article resonates with me because I’ve been reading and listening to Lester’s work and find you words equally comforting.
Good article!
“The fewer things you let become a Thing for you, the more freedom you experience.” I was thinking about almost this exact thing this morning. Luckily, I’ve freed myself from most of it–took years of work. But what’s so strange is that (I believe) the majority of people complicate everything in their minds. They build imaginary “things”. The things are in effect cages. Whether the cage is made of a house mortgage, material stuff, addiction, bad relationships, indulgence, expectation, social image, dreams/fantasies, we are absolutely brilliant at designing our own miseries through mental complication. Why is that? Why do we invent baloney in our own minds, blow it up, and lock ourselves in? Actually the monumental nonsense/BS we’re able to concoct does a disservice to baloney.
You never see a dog wake up in the morning and ponder its existence, get depressed because they’re turning 40, prim their coats so the other dogs don’t make fun of them, and then eat with the subconscious intent of killing themselves. They don’t get together and decide the dogs in another country are the enemy and then launch a coordinated attack. Seriously–what is going on? Maybe actual survival is no longer hard enough so our minds starts making ridiculous crap up? Put enough of the crazy thought with the crazy thought of another that aligns and we suddenly have a new normal?
I don’t care anymore. I care if I see somebody hurt or suffering, but I don’t care if my neighbour likes or dislikes me. If I have to talk to him or not. If I pass a stranger shovelling in a yard I might ask if he wants a hand. Not to get to know him necessarily, it’s just all sort of irrelevant. I don’t care if a takeout coffee tastes good or horrible. …Or if I trip and look like fool in front of a crowd. Occasionally I will get irritated when somebody is incessantly moaning about something and it’s their own stupidity and lack of action that keeps them where they are. It’s like mental blindness.
Anyway–sorry about that! Great article! Nice to know somebody out there is thinking about not thinking.
Can’t agree more. A very common problem, faced by almost everyone of us, which shouldn’t have been a problem in the first place. Just a ‘Good Morning’ or ‘Hi’ works wonders. Great article indeed.
There is something missing in this post for me: sometimes ‘things’ are more than just ‘things.’ There is a reason I avoid walking past hoards of folks drinking on patios: sexual harassment and assault is a real things in my life, not just a mental barrier to get past.
I understand that there is a difference in what you’re writing about and the way I’m approaching the same example of walking past a patio. At the same time, it’s a stereotypical example of male privilege in our culture. While reading the article, I can’t help but think about the pain of being told to ‘just get over it’ when there is real danger involved, simply because as a tall white dude, you face different social barriers than I.
This being said, I don’t disagree with anything in your post, and I do of course find myself with many ‘things’ that fall under the umbrella which you’re writing about. I also felt that there was a piece missing from your perspective, which deserved recognition.
Thanks! :)
In the dark corner of my mind…I will catch myself and decide that I’m not going to “Make a Thing out of it this Time”. EXCELLENT!
An eye-opener. How many aspect of our world do we avoid, and accumulate these barriers over time. Aversions created by one prior experience now make up our map of the world, and of ourselves. We paint the whole world with the brush handed to us by one single experience. We need to recognize where and when we do this, and not allow it. Thanks.
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