{"id":466,"date":"2014-09-04T17:28:03","date_gmt":"2014-09-04T21:28:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sallybsedgwick.com\/conversation\/?p=466"},"modified":"2014-09-04T17:28:20","modified_gmt":"2014-09-04T21:28:20","slug":"let-others-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/let-others-in\/","title":{"rendered":"Let Others In"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"162nd\u201c\u2026and letting people in.\u201d I was having my favorite conversation, and asking. \u201cWhat little things could people do to help the world work better? To help it change.\u201d And my new friend, who became the 162<\/span>nd<\/span> Facebook like, explained, \u201cyou know, like letting a car into traffic or letting someone to go ahead of you in the checkout line at the grocery store.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n


\nSo of course ever since I\u2019ve been thinking about what she said! I\u2019ve become aware of the car exiting the gas station that needed to cut across two lanes of traffic to go the other way when I was stopped at a light. I left him room to pull out when I could have easily blocked the gas station driveway.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"4258095361_f514ce4715_z\"<\/a>And there was the person who for whatever reason insisted he wasn\u2019t in a hurry and I should go ahead of him in line at the grocery. There was the time we all effortlessly merged into one lane of traffic at a highway construction site, when one greedy person could have stuck us all in place for half an hour or so. (That\u2019s one way traffic jams happen\u2014just so you know.) Or the person who let me into the right lane when I was sure I was going to miss an exit and was already planning route B. Oh, yes, and the slow vehicle that pulled over so I could get around him going up a hill.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s the wave of thanks you get when you let someone in, which means just slowing down a little so they can edge in ahead of you.<\/span><\/p>\n

You have those stories too. It\u2019s related to our earlier conversation, Open Doors<\/a>, and essential to the idea of taking turns so beloved of adults supervising playgrounds.\"cross<\/a> <\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps it is related to confronting bullies. Bullying is another way of shutting people out because we don\u2019t understand or agree with someone\u2019s way of dealing with the world or even how they appear to the world. The alternative, the way to make the world work better, is to allow them in \u2014or dare to accept their invitation to join them in their world, if only for a moment.*<\/span><\/p>\n

Or is it about inviting someone unexpected to be part of a group, at least for a day. Or accepting an invitation, just once, that you\u2019re not really sure about.<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally it may be about not shutting ourselves in. Allowing others to help us. Being vulnerable. Accepting gifts<\/a>. No, not indiscriminately \u2014 we\u2019ve talking about being a tad suspicious<\/a>\u00a0too.<\/span><\/p>\n

But on the whole, allowing someone in, letting someone else in means we\u2019re changing the world together. We can\u2019t change the world and make it work a little better by ourselves alone. Certainly, just navigating through the day is easier when we let people in and they let us in. There are even bigger possibilities, too. What have you seen? It is through these interconnections that the world can be more whole.\"merge<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

*Bullying is also about feeling insecure, but that\u2019s a different conversation.<\/span><\/p>\n

__________________________________________<\/p>\n

Photo credits from top:
\n162nd Facebook like: Belinda Banks Frykman \u2014 William Frykman
\nTrain, stuck in traffic \u2014 eddie welker
\nPedestrians and traffic near Wall Street \u2014 Spirit Moxie
\nQuick – to merge, or not to merge \u2014 Gary Stevens<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201c\u2026and letting people in.\u201d I was having my favorite conversation, and asking. \u201cWhat little things could people do to help the world work better? To help it change.\u201d And my new friend, who became the 162nd Facebook like, explained, \u201cyou … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main-conversation"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DJHl-7w","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":471,"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466\/revisions\/471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spiritmoxie.com\/conversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}