If you’ve ever felt disconnected in this fast-paced world, I have two small but powerful suggestions:
- Become a regular at a local business—one where the hours might shift because the owner has to take their kid to a doctor’s appointment.
- Spend time tech-free in nature, simply wandering.
I’m writing this in the days between Earth Day and Independent Bookstore Day, and I can’t help but reflect on how both small brick-and-mortar shops and the natural world offer something we desperately need: real connection.
On a recent visit to a tiny bookstore, I chatted with the owner, who shared something insightful. People-watching in a bookstore, they said, is an art. You try to guess what someone might pick up. But more often than not, you’re wrong. One of their best customers—a burly guy with keys jingling from his belt—wasn’t expected to buy anything. Now, he stops by regularly, often just to sit and read. Independent bookstores prove that old saying true: Don’t judge a book by its cover.
Places like this—and moments like these—let us connect with the quiet threads that hold us together. They’re reminders that beneath all our differences, we are still human.
Nature teaches us the same lesson. Sure, technology can show us stunning sights and sounds from across the globe. But without engaging the other senses—touch, smell, taste, and that hard-to-describe internal awareness—we miss the depth. Real change, real empathy, only grows when we plant ourselves in the dirt of real experience.
But you don’t have the extra time to support a local business or to go help out at your local park? Would you say the same about spending 15 extra minutes with a friend? Because that’s exactly what you’re doing when you visit your neighborhood bookstore or help clean up your local park. You’re building a relationship—with people and place. You’re visiting a future friend.
Simple actions—smelling the pages of a bookstore, feeling the soil in a park—anchor us. They remind us what really matters. The core of every meaningful experience lies in small, honest moments with human and natural nature. Maybe the world’s problems really do begin to shift when we return to the dirt we came from and the small connections that make us who we are.