Take a leap into human connection; it's the healthiest leap of all

​It's Leap Day 2024.

On this leap day, maybe consider taking a leap into something that you know will change your life for the better. Maybe take a leap into something that will change your life more than anything can. Maybe leap into human connection.

Real. Human. Connection.

In our training yesterday, when talking about the power of human connection, a young lady said, it's easy for me to take care of myself doing the things I can do by myself, but it's harder embracing the care that requires me to connect with others.

I get it. Many of us get it.

Connecting with others may be the hardest new habit to form. Because human connection is a choice and it is a habit.

The reason we don't do it is the same reason we don't go to the gym. Or go for daily walks. Or eat our vegetables. Or put our screens down. Or get 8 hours of sleep. Or do countless other things that we know would make us healthier and feel better about living.

Until it is easy to do those things, until we are so overwhelmed with their benefits that we can't NOT do them, it is much easier to NOT do them.

After a long day of work, it's much easier to NOT go for that walk I planned than taking it. Even as much as I know it will make me feel better about my day.

Well, there is growing research to support that the thing that will make us feel best about our day, above and beyond any other thing, is our interpersonal human relationships. This is true for extroverts and introverts and every vert in between.

But there is also growing bodies of research that tell us that far fewer of us than ever before claim to have strong interpersonal human relationships. Much like taking that walk, we know connecting with others is good for us, but most days we just don't feel like doing it.

During one of our activities yesterday, one of our participants said that one thing she does to connect with others is answer her phone. I laughed because it was so honest.

Years ago, long before caller ID, we answered every call. Today, we decide whether we feel like it or not based on whom the call is coming from. Or whether I'm in the mood to talk to anyone at all.

We get to decide if we're up for human connection. And more than ever we decide no.

I think there's a misconception about relationships. And that misconception is that a relationship should always feel easy, it should always feel like something I feel like being engaged in, it should always feel like something that comes natural and requires very little effort.

What healthy things in life require very little effort?

Right. None.

And so, wouldn't it make sense that the absolute healthiest element in life, human connection, might require the most effort?

There are a lot of healthy habits we've collectively abandoned in life. Maybe human relationships are at the top of that list.

Maybe today, in honor of Leap Day, you'll take a leap into connection. Send someone a note, make a call, sit with someone at lunch, join a book club, invite someone to church this weekend.

There's no doubt in my mind that many of you have been wrestling with making a connection you know would be valuable but you've failed to take the leap.

Today, take the leap.

It might be the healthiest leap you can make.

And oh, happy Leap Day friends.