Juntos de Vivek Murthy

 Debe de haber sido hace mucho tiempo porque no recuerdo estar leyendo la ultima página de un libro de no ficción para emocionarme tanto como para que se me saltaran las lágrimas, es algo que me ha sucedido, el emocionarme, ante una película, una novela, incluso una canción, ¿Pero con  un ensayo?, ya digo no me acuerdo.

El libro Juntos de Vivek Murthy, en  una primera sección, se centra en las bases que apuntalan la soledad y la conexión social, es decir, las razones por las que la soledad ha evolucionado en una especie tan sumamente social como la humana, y las formas en las que distintos aspectos de la cultura pueden ayudar —u obstaculizar— el empeño por establecer lazos con otros y forjar un sentimiento de pertenencia a una comunidad.

La segunda sección aborda el proceso de conexión que cada uno de nosotros individualmente debe seguir en su propia vida, empezando por la relación con uno mismo y, mirando ya hacia el exterior, también a través de la familia y los amigos, para en última instancia construir un mundo más conectado para las generaciones futuras.

Por eso la reflexión a solas y el conocimiento de uno mismo desempeñan un papel tan crucial a la hora de prepararnos para las relaciones con los demás. Cuando nos sintonizamos de acuerdo con nuestras propias señales y frecuencias interiores, adquirimos de forma natural una capacidad empática (en buena medida inconsciente) de reconocer esas señales en los demás y vernos reflejados en ellas. Este ajuste interior nos ayuda a sentirnos centrados, confiados y tranquilos, consolida los cimientos del autoconocimiento sobre los que erigiremos conexiones más fuertes con el exterior, no solo con otras personas, sino también con el mundo en general. Podemos observar por ejemplo modelos de la naturaleza, como una libélula iridiscente o una formación de nubes majestuosa, o admirarnos ante la Vía Láctea en una noche clara. O quizá descubramos maravillas entre las personas que nos rodean: el amor con el que un padre le lee a su hijo, la generosidad de quien de camino al trabajo cede el asiento a un desconocido, la delicadeza con la que un chico coge de la mano a su hermana menor. En todos estos casos experimentamos la conexión dentro de la soledad.

 Dentro de todos los conceptos y puntualizaciones que hace, recuerdo algunos como cuando dice que las relaciones sociales se puede considerar como un alimento que todos necesitamos y que la cantidad de relaciones que tengamos no significa que sea suficiente o sano, sino depende más bien de la calidad de estas relaciones, también dice que ser solitario o estar solo, no es lo mismo que sentirse solo, y esta soledad se puede sentir en varios ámitos, el íntimo, el social y el colectivo, el primero con la pareja o amigos/as íntimas, el segundo social con las personas que son nuestros conocidos y el colectivo a nivel de relaciones sociales con el resto del mundo y seres humanos.

Los estudios antropológicos estiman que los primeros humanos cazadores recolectores pasaban un tercio de su vida trabajando, otro tercio durmiendo y otra tercera parte socializando y jugando con los niños.

El estar aislado no es determinante para sentirse solo porque las historias que podemos leer, escuchar, ver en el cine nos puede hacer sentirnos conectados con nuestras emociones y otros seres haciendo que jueguen un papel en la seguridad, valores y propósitos de nuestra identidad.

Realmente el ser humano es una esponja social, lo he pensado muchas veces, algunos somos mas "esponjosos" que otros y cualquier hecho, puede ser un libro, una película, una anécdota, un encuentro con un amigo hace que algo en nosotros cambiemos, nos transformemos convirtiéndonos en otra persona, para bien o para mal (nuestro o de otras personas a su vez).

Son demasiadas ideas para poder recordar, así que como he hecho en otras ocasiones, copiaré las notas que tomé por si alguien y sobre todo yo, en el futuro vuelvo a repasarlas.

NOTAS.

MAKE KINDNESS CONTAGIOUS.

talking honestly about whatever was on our minds, including our joys and our challenges.

In childhood, boys will develop deep, meaningful friendships with emotional honesty and intimacy. But as they approach puberty, they learn that social closeness is not okay.

He says virtually all cultures around the world frame traits like ambitiousness and assertiveness as masculine and qualities such as vulnerability and love as feminine. Most of these cultures also regard these feminine stereotypes as weak and inferior.

It required taking a risk and being vulnerable.

Chapter 4: Why Now?

but we also talked about life. She had gone through a bad breakup. We talked a lot about what we wanted from career and life.” Such openness and mutual support are rare in today’s hectic world—especially

To greater and lesser degrees, we’re all novelty seekers, and the internet is all about novelty. As

Research has found that humans are incapable of attending to multiple activities at once.

Parigi put this idea to the test with the hospitality networking app CouchSurfing, which connects travelers with hosts who allow them to stay in their homes without charge. The original assumption behind this service was that free stays would form the basis for lasting friendships. And there’s no question about the popularity of the platform. Since launching in 2004, the CouchSurfing community has grown to fourteen million travelers and four hundred thousand hosts. But what about those friendships?

In contrast, the effort that the group with less up-front information had to put into learning about each other from the ground up actually paid off in friendship. It’s not just what we know about each other that counts, it’s how we get to know it. And time and attention, with a little struggle thrown in, can make a real difference in strengthening connection.

Distraction is not the only reason that technology can interfere with high-quality connections.

The allure of the “perfect” match, then, is a powerful deterrent to commitment. But perfection is an illusion that technology and modern culture cultivate at the expense of humanity. The perpetual cruising, the endless chase for the ideal companion is bound to leave us anxious and lonely.

To be real is to be vulnerable, and this takes courage, especially if we believe that others will like us more if we hide or distort who we truly are. Technology can promote this belief by making it easy to pose online as someone braver, happier, better looking, and more successful than we really feel.

our brief conversations about the concrete and other seemingly mundane things were likely far more meaningful than I’d realized. The truth is, we never can tell when small interactions with others might be significant to them—or to us.

How does he define that friendship? “Authenticity,” he said. “Authenticity is about reaching and revealing, being real with each other. A level of honesty and commitment to relationship that permits people to stay in connection in spite of difference and diversity.”

“You find your community first, then you get persuaded.”

by sharing our individual stories can we connect and begin to heal our divided society.

Chapter 5: Unmasking Loneliness

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”

In short, helping others makes us feel we matter, and mattering feels good.

provide safe opportunities to rekindle a sense of meaning, value, and purpose while also connecting with others.

Turn Off Your Job and Turn On Your Life.

Adversity doesn’t mean that we’re destroyed.

People weren’t just allowed to be open and honest; they were encouraged to share and come together around their truest feelings and fears. “I rediscovered the power of uncovering our common humanity.”

the lasting lesson is not that we all need to be best friends, but that we do need to develop cultures in which all are encouraged to express and share our true humanity.

Thomas Merton’s 1960 book The Wisdom of the Desert: “What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves?

We have experiences and meet people that challenge our preconceived notions about ourselves and the world. At the same time, many of us are constantly seeking to “improve” or “reinvent” ourselves. Much of this change is natural, necessary, and healthy. We strive to learn, to grow, to expand our skills and deepen our knowledge—and self-knowledge. This is a vital and lifelong process. Along the way, however, external influences are constantly pressing us to change in ways that may not be natural or healthy. These external influences can infiltrate and distort our internal decision making.

In order to move independently through the world, we all need to learn to treat ourselves with the kindness, encouragement, and candor that we would offer a good friend.

But it takes time alone and consistent practice to develop the habit of being compassionate toward oneself,

The shared vulnerability of people at her yoga training taught Serena that no one is perfect or perfectly attuned to everyone around them.

The key is to learn and gain deeper compassion, rather than anger or resentment, as a result of setbacks. This new wisdom, along with her deeper sense of herself, allowed Serena to treat herself and others more kindly, from a stance of friendship rather than fear.

knowing oneself is both more challenging and more important for connecting with others than it may seem. Indeed, it’s often much easier to gain insight and perspective into others than into ourselves. That’s because knowledge requires a degree of objectivity, which is difficult to summon when we are the subject of concern.

What do you most love doing, and why? What do you dread? How do you respond to stress? What are you most grateful for? What do you yearn for?

Self-knowledge is not egotistical or self-aggrandizing. The goal is to examine our natural instincts, feelings, and behaviors honestly, to come to understand them better so that they inform our choices instead of colliding with them.

“It was such a foreign concept in Tibetan culture to not be compassionate and loving

“I’ve found it’s difficult for people to start with loving themselves because of our culture of self-criticism and self-hatred.

the power of gratitude can be delivered in the smallest of moments . . . and those moments have the power to change how we see ourselves and the people around us.

Chapter 7: Circles of Connection

“not about what someone can do for you, it’s who and what the two of you become in each other’s presence.” He added, “The notion of doing nothing but spending time in each other’s company has, in a way, become a lost art.”1

“We don’t treat ourselves perfectly all the time, so we don’t treat our friends ideally all the time.” That’s why forgiveness is such a crucial part of friendship.

three dimensions of loneliness: Intimate, Relational, and Collective.

These inner-circle relationships are our strongest mutual bonds. They also require the most time and energy—which limits the number of such relationships that we can sustain to about fifteen at any given time. According to Dunbar, we’re wired to devote a whopping 60 percent of our time and energy to our inner-circle friends and confidantes, and most of this is spent with our closest intimates, who rarely number more than five.

The simple fact is that the less time we physically spend with friends, the more likely they are to slip into our outer circles. Dunbar believes that’s because core friendships will wither without the direct face-to-face communication that allows us to be fully present and available to one another. We need to make the effort to see the friends we want to keep close, to work through conflict with them and exchange help in times of need.

But the richness of relationships is in their texture—in the sound of someone’s voice, in their smile and their body language, in the unexpected moments of honesty that tend to occur during unplanned conversation. The irony is that we’re almost always left feeling better when we take those risks with friends.

the Harvard data showed that inner-circle relationships were better predictors of health and happiness throughout life than IQ, wealth, or social class.

Laughter is one of the most contagious, universal, and instinctive connectors, Dunbar told me. Like touch, it’s a trigger for endorphin release, so when we share laughter, we feel happier, more familiar with those around us, and more at ease. The Dalai Lama employs his infectious laugh to connect with crowds and world leaders alike. Laughter reduces stress and feels good both because it induces a positive biochemical response and because it brings people together—we rarely laugh alone.

One of our most important sources of connection is the workplace. Given that most of us today spend more of our waking hours on the job than at home, and many of us interact more with our colleagues than with our non-work friends, we need meaningful connections at work to sustain us. But often these friendships require an encouraging nudge.

In moments of stress or conflict, lonely employees are more likely to decide that certain relationships are not worth the effort.

Gallup found that when coworkers have a friend at work, they’re inspired to act on behalf of their company in ways that employees without connected relationships are not. These actions extend to the sharing of useful information, voicing constructive opinions, and giving feedback without feeling threatened. But the more important effects benefit workers themselves. Having a friend at work makes us feel safer, more resilient and calmer when disagreements arise and more likely to support one

“Ninety percent of helping in the workplace is in response to requests for help. But most people won’t ask for what they need.” As someone who has a hard time asking for help, I could certainly relate to what he was saying. People fear that if they ask for help, they’re going to be perceived as needy, incompetent, weak, or ignorant. They think that admitting they have a problem is going to harm their reputation. But Wayne has found that none of that is true. “There’s research that shows, as long as you make a thoughtful request, people will think you are more competent, rather than less.”

In other words, even if we know the rejection is fake, we still feel the same emotional pain.

RULER is based on the simple but powerful idea that emotions matter. When we acknowledge the power of our emotions and when we have the skills to calmly consider and shape our reaction to people and circumstances, we feel and do better in our relationships, in school, and in the workplace. To date, more than two thousand public, private, independent, and parochial schools have implemented RULER worldwide, and data from many of the schools show that the program meaningfully shifts the emotional climate of the classroom. This, in turn, improves social confidence and emotional intelligence scores while reducing aggression and emotional distress, Marc shared with me, and there is preliminary data that the program improves academic performance. The benefits have extended to teachers as well. One study has shown that teachers who participate in RULER are less stressed and burned out and report higher levels of engagement.

“One feeling word can open up an entire discussion,” Marc said.

brain can be trained

“It’s such an important time of life for them to be reflecting about their interactions with other people and the way that they treat each other. Lessons about this stuff can actually make a long-term difference.”

Conclusion

What really matters in life?

Strong relationships are what matter most. They improve our health, enhance our performance, and enable us to rise above differences of opinion and ideology to come together and take on big challenges as a society. Human connection is the foundation on which we build everything else.