Like everyone else, I went to buy some presents before Christmas. Apart from the insufferable scrum, which even for me, a confessed shopaholic, was too much, I was amazed (for which consecutive year I wonder) by the obsession with Christmas songs. Every shop played ‘All I want for Christmas is you’, ‘It’s lonely, this Christmas’ and more of the sort.
I understand that all these shops want to attract as many customers as possible, to make us spend as much as possible, to buy everything for our loved ones. However, all this music can have the reverse effect. A bit of empathy would go a long way in thinking about those who are alone, and they are not few, for whom this music would pave the way to a cruel depression.
I experienced such a state a few years ago, when I decided to leave the country on holidays. For a few years, I ran away from all the holiday frenzy, from the pressure that I felt of being happy, from enjoying willy-nilly the holidays ‘magic’, from franticly buying anything.
Being alone in another country worked for me, reading in cafes, looking at people, admiring cathedrals, streets, parks, museums, places that brought me a dose of beauty and partially filled the void that I was feeling.
I was lucky – I found something fast that worked for me. Not many can find a strategy that would keep them in a form of balance. Sometimes, our state of loneliness can block us; we stop thinking rationally, we become hypersensitive, reactive, as if nothing goes the way we wanted. I believe that in these situations, grown-ups are like children when they are tired: they become agitated, they cry, they become aggressive, throwing their toys, stomping their feet. If you hug and hold them tight, after a short while, they will calm down. Grown-ups also need, from time to time, to be hugged, to show that we see them, that they matter to us, that they are loved. The white noise disappears, and they relax. At least for a while.
Instead of the traffic jam noise, instead of the exaggerated music in shops, instead of the endless advice of happiness, and partying, what if we stopped and showed those around us that we care, that we see them, that they are important? And we paid more attention to those who are lonely – we never know where life takes us, what will happen to us.
No good will be done as a society unless we do good as individuals, until the state of ‘caring’ is part of everyday life.
As for those who are lonely, I recommend they try a slight alteration of one of the songs mentioned above: ‘All I want for Christmas is …ME’. But about this, to be continued.