Every Moment, An Invitation

I was checking out at a store recently, still wearing a fleece I'd just had on for an appointment. The cashier complimented it, and I found myself telling her something I'd been rejoicing in for the past month: "I've had this for twenty years, but I've only worn it a handful of times until this season."

For two decades, I looked at this fleece as a jacket—something for crisp autumn days when the weather required outerwear but hadn't yet demanded a real coat. The problem was, I had other jackets that worked better for those specific conditions. And the ideal conditions I thought I needed never seemed to emerge. So despite liking it, I rarely reached for it.

This fall, when I was switching out my seasonal wardrobe, I looked at it differently. What if I stopped thinking of it as a jacket and started seeing it as a sweater? Something snazzier than a regular pullover but more casual and lighter than my heavy wool sweaters—a perfect in-between layer I could wear inside, or under my winter coat, or on those days that needed just a bit more warmth.

That one shift in perspective transformed something I'd owned for twenty years into something I now wear regularly.

I've been thinking about this pattern a lot lately—how sometimes what we're looking for isn't missing, we're just looking at it wrong.

This time of year seems to amplify that feeling in a particular way. For some, it's a season of abundance—gatherings that fill the calendar, conversations that rarely stop, faces familiar and new crowding into every corner. For others, it's profoundly isolating—the busyness happening around them but not quite with them, the cultural expectation of togetherness highlighting what feels absent. And for some, the endless festivities themselves become overwhelming—connection reduced to superficial exchanges that leave us feeling more drained than nourished.

Here's what strikes me: all of these experiences—too much, too little, or too superficial—can leave us feeling disconnected. Because somewhere along the way, we've confused activity with connection, proximity with presence.

In fact, I've spent this past week clarifying this for myself—refining how I talk about the work I do. And what I keep coming back to is this: the disconnection so many of us feel isn't just about lacking connection to others. It starts with losing connection to ourselves.

Connection works more like an ecology than a building project. It's not something we construct from the outside in—it's a living system where everything's already interconnected.

Waiting for What's Already Here

Like that fleece waiting in my closet for conditions that never quite arrived, I wonder how often we approach connection the same way. Waiting for the perfect community. The ideal gathering. People who really "get us." And when those circumstances don't show up—or when they do but still leave us feeling empty—we assume connection simply isn't available right now.

But connection doesn't work that way.

This season asks us to think about giving—to others, to causes, to community. There's genuine beauty in that impulse. Yet the quality of what we offer depends entirely on our connection to ourselves first. When we're rushing through our days, performing our roles, meeting everyone else's expectations, our interactions become transactional. We go through the motions of connection without actually connecting.

It's like trying to share water from an empty well.

Connection works more like an ecology than a building project. It's not something we construct from the outside in—it's a living system where everything's already interconnected. Our relationship with ourselves, with others, with our communities, with the world around us. When one part of that system is disconnected, the whole system feels it.

So where does this actually start? With reconnecting to ourselves—not as some prerequisite we must complete before we're "ready" for real connection, but as an ongoing practice that happens alongside every interaction.

This reconnection shows up in small moments of awareness. Noticing when we're rushing through a conversation because we're anxious about what's next. Catching the edge in our tone and getting curious about what's driving it. Recognizing when our body language is closed off and wondering what we're protecting.

Sometimes it takes someone else pointing it out—a partner asking "what was that tone about?" when we didn't even realize we'd snapped. Sometimes we catch ourselves mid-sentence and pause. Either way, that moment of awareness creates a choice: we can defend our initial response, or we can get curious about it. When we choose curiosity—when we take even a brief moment to reconnect with what's actually happening inside us—we can shift how we engage. And that shift opens us up to being more genuinely present, both with ourselves and with others.

When we're present to what we personally need, what we're genuinely feeling, we can show up more genuinely. And genuine presence—with ourselves and with others—is what creates the possibility for connection in even the briefest moments.

What We're Missing About Giving

Here's what we miss: connection isn't reserved for the meaningful conversations, the deep friendships, the communities we're trying to build. It's available in every interaction—if we're present for it.

The cashier at the grocery store who's been on their feet for eight hours. The neighbor you pass on your morning walk. The person holding the door. The stranger on the train. These aren't practice moments for "real" connection. These are connection—small, brief, and genuine.

I once lived across the street from a high school soccer field where I'd notice teenagers—some friends, many strangers—meeting for Sunday afternoon pickup football. Each of them had their own reason for joining: movement, play, a moment of joy. That awareness—that connection to what they personally needed—led them to show up. And because they showed up authentically for themselves, they could show up authentically with each other. With each gathering, they built a moment of community and connection, strangers playing together like they'd known each other forever.

I wasn't part of their game, yet witnessing this brought me genuine joy—a reminder that our connections ripple out in ways we don't always see or expect.

The same thing happens at events or trips where strangers enter together. When we know what we need—whether that's rest, adventure, learning, or simply being present to shared experience—and we allow ourselves to be open to that, we naturally become open to others. Guards come down not through force, but because we've given ourselves permission to show up as we actually are. By the time you have to separate, saying goodbye can feel like leaving an old friend. Not because you've built something complex, but because you allowed genuine presence to emerge—which is, perhaps, who we naturally are as humans when we're connected to ourselves first.

Not every interaction needs to be profound. But every interaction carries the possibility of genuine presence—which is perhaps the most generous gift we can offer, especially in this season.

This is what becomes possible when we stop waiting for ideal conditions and start recognizing what's already here. Not every interaction needs to be profound. But every interaction carries the possibility of genuine presence—which is perhaps the most generous gift we can offer, especially in this season.

The Gift That Keeps Giving

This season will continue asking us to give—our time, our resources, our energy. And all of that matters. But perhaps the deepest form of giving isn't about adding more to our already full plates. It's about bringing more of ourselves to what's already here.

Like that fleece I'd owned for twenty years, connection has been here all along. We don't need to wait for ideal conditions or build elaborate frameworks. We need to see what we already have differently—starting with ourselves.

Every interaction carries this possibility. The brief exchange at checkout. The moment with a neighbor. The gathering with strangers. These aren't obstacles between us and "real" connection. They are connection, waiting for us to show up—present to ourselves, and therefore present to each other.

What if the most generous gift we can offer this season isn't wrapped in paper? What if it's simply the quality of presence we bring to each moment, including this one, with ourselves?

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The Invitation Continues

This exploration of connection is part of my work on what I call the Vibrant Middle—navigating authentic balance in a world that pushes toward extremes. I share more about this approach on my philosophy page, and I work with people in a variety of ways such as one-on-one guidance, small group circles, and workshops.