Hello!

This is a post about saying ‘hello’. So, hello! As a way of introduction, here is a picture of me (about to head off to Cub Scouts and looking seriously chuffed about it).

Now - WAS this me; or IS this me? Have I really changed since then? Or am I still the same person, deep-down? How much of what I do today is tangled up with the hopes and fears of that little lad?

Let me tell you about this kid. He did alright at school, knew the difference between right and wrong, liked the idea of cricket but not very good at it. For some reason (probably because he was daydreaming) he didn’t get the memo that most children get when they’re about three years old – the memo that gives you ALL the information you need to get on with other kids and talk with natural ease. So instead, he spent quite a lot of his childhood on the edges of things, observing other folks go by.

In the language of the time, he was ‘shy’. Sometimes, he tried to get involved, to do what people seemed to be doing, and he kinda got away with it, too; but at other times, he’d say stuff that came from good intentions, that was rooted in his nascent ideas of good behaviour – but was taken as weird, or insensitive, or out of sync with everyone else.

Thankfully for him, he found respite from all this social confusion – he lost himself in adventure books, or sought peace and predictability by cycling into the open spaces of the countryside. And he was always daydreaming… always wandering out of the tick-tocking of time.

After I’d typed the words above, I wasn’t sure what to write next; I paused for a mo, then reached for a book – ‘A Way of Being’ by Carl Rogers, founder of person-centred therapy – to see if that would give me some inspiration. Astonishingly, the book opened at these words:

“I am still – inside – the shy boy who found communication very difficult in interpersonal situations… who expressed himself freely in high school themes, but felt himself too ‘odd’ to say the same things in class. That boy is still very much a part of me.” (Carl R Rogers, 1980)

This is how I, too, first encountered the world – as a boy caught between ‘doing the Right Thing’ (official persona) and just ‘being the right person, right now’ (actual, real, messy, odd me). Because of this, communication is something I don’t take for granted… I’ve learned that being misunderstood is a lonely, dizzy business, and we spend our lives yearning to be understood. So it’s weird, don’t you think, that the book spoke to me right then - that it 'got' me?

As I grew older, I wandered back in from the edges of things, and started to talk and to listen; but I’m still that kid, a bit off kilter and observing the world from a different (and not always comfortable) perspective. And I think that’s helped. I’ve discovered – not just in psychology textbooks but in the weave and weft of my own life as well – that every person needs to be understood as different, and every person needs to feel like they’ve got something to bring to the world. But this is not easy at all. Being seen as different entails feeling vulnerable and outside our comfort zone; so we each find our own ways to NOT be seen (particularly during our childhoods). Whether it’s via outstanding achievements, or getting up to no good, or stubborn compliance, or just cycling out into the empty countryside: the aim is often the same – “please don’t notice the real me, who’s scared, or confused, or some other feeling I don't know”.

That’s where simply saying hello comes in. ‘Hello’ isn’t just a convenient word that gets someone through the gate to the more meaty elements of conversation (co-operation, disagreement, learning, progress). The spirit of ‘hello’ has long-lasting effects. It’s stepping out of your comfort zone to offer hospitality and welcome; it’s a one-word conversation without agenda, except to show you’ve noticed someone and want to beckon them over; it’s an encounter where you bring no judgement, only genuine interest, to the person behind the persona.

We will probably never realise the relief and sense of purpose we’ve brought to countless people just by giving them a friendly greeting. But I’m also keen to ‘keep the hello going’, not just in the first moment but over and over again – so I never forget the other person is human, unique, and messed up; and has stories to tell.