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Give time and thoughtfulness this Christmas

Well it’s that time of year again. In an increasingly secular yet paradoxically multi-faith society, that anchor of the Christian calendar comes round again: Christmas.

These days it is substantially secularised, as the markets have traditionally sought to exploit it, as retail and other niche markets gear up for a fake feeding frenzy. As for the masses, any true sense of Christianity gave way to materialism a long time ago.

“Bah humbug David,” you may say. “Realist,” I respond. For the truth is, Christmas, as with all human rituals, has its lighter sides and its darker ones.

The lighter sides are understandably the gathering of family, the reconnection of people, the ritual that sometimes brings people together in ways that otherwise wouldn’t happen. Whilst retail may have a renaissance, for other aspects of small business it is a time of the year when many hard-pressed business owners, self-employed people etc. do take permission to wind down a little bit, due to the naturally reduced economic activity of the holidays and, to that extent, it is a good thing as people reconnect, avoid stress and do something different.

For other cultures, Christmas is a ritual to respect that is borne of Christian beliefs. If only we were so enthused about Ramadan, perhaps if we learned the important ritualistic times of other religions, this would be significant in a multi-faith, multi-cultural society, but they seem to lack that materialistic “twang” that we now know as a traditional Christmas, don’t they.

Perhaps most poignantly, it’s periodic rituals such as Christmas that emphasize ones social position in the world.

It is sad that, in a world of increasing single person households, with more and more of those being amongst the elderly, we find unprecedentedly expressed levels of isolation and loneliness that becomes particularly poignant at such times. A new charity, the Silver Line has received over 300,000 calls in its first year of operation and one can reasonably suspect it is going to be extraordinarily busy over Christmas.

We live in an increasingly distant society. We see new styles of communication where normal social discourse does not occur. Try taking a ride on a train. It’s very hard to strike up a conversation with a stranger the way one could, connect with somebody and find a little more about them, when their eyes are down and their thumbs are racing across the keyboard of smart phones and tablet computers, communicating with somebody somewhere else on the globe whilst the person in front of them does not get a second look. Other people walking around with headphones, cutting themselves off from the normal social discourse that would have occurred in yesteryear. Many, also in their cocoon of sound, leave their safety to the drivers bearing down on them, not their own wits.

In business, we talk about “pressing the flesh” for a reason, that kinaesthetic contact between two people, that ability to look into a person’s eyes and connect even at the level of social ritual, is often much more meaningful and persuasive for closing that deal than a Skype conversation, however useful the latter maybe.

We are becoming increasingly de-skilled in the face-to-face graces of connecting with our fellow humans. Whilst technology connects the world and offers the opportunity for relationships and connections that otherwise would never exist, it often substitutes the immediacy of the meaningful, but somewhat more interpersonally demanding, connections of the people around us.

So my plea this Christmas is can we make a positive effort to reconnect with people in non-electronic ways. Sure, it’s great to Skype your Aunty Florrie in Southern Australia who can’t be with you for the festive day, but I am thinking more of one’s neighbours, one’s employees, the person who you buy your newspaper from and most importantly that member of an increasing cohort of single households where a person is at a stage in their lives where their normal social networks have been stripped away and they may be facing Christmas without seeing a soul.

It is very evident there is a class war going on. Looking at the television the other day I was staggered by the social divide. One just needs to look at the programme planner to witness this. Within a two hour period we had documentaries: one highlighting the practices of the banks that would willingly destroy businesses to claw back profit, when they had put themselves at risk in the subprime market; the other about the scandalous hardship and exploitation of humans seeking to be trafficked into this country. Then there were the lifestyles programmes, on the one hand the unashamed focus upon British social elites as cameras followed the staff of Tattler magazine, only to switch over to Channel 5 to watch the under classes operate in “Skint”. Our political system is bent. Social divides have become a source of entertainment. We have lived with elitism for so long we have lost sight of the fact that social control ensures the “haves” remain in a gain position and the “have nots” remain in a lose position. I guess the very prophet for whom this festive ritual was designed was right when he said, “the poor you should always have”. We have made sure of that.

Whilst major social and democratic change could take centuries to enact, there is something we can do now. We can end the haves and have nots of Christmas. We can look out for the person who is on their own and wish them well. We can look our fellow person in the eye and genuinely wish them the best time that they can have. We can look around with positivity to see people everywhere doing their best to make their way through lives, within their own unique perspectives and we can use this time to make a difference. It’s as simple as this. Find at least one person that you wouldn’t on earth have connected with this Christmas and have a conversation with them, be daring, have a cup of coffee with them, if they live alone offer to visit them, just give the greatest gift of all, to value another human being, affirming your humanity and theirs at the same time.

You might find that it is the greatest gift that you give. It will cost nothing but your time and thoughtfulness.

We live in a community in the North East of England that is somewhat marginalised. We get poorer shares of national finances, we are side-stepped for transport and other infrastructure whilst there is an endearing love of regional accents and the like. And in the popular media, ultimately, North East people are discriminated against by Government and others in every way that one would associate with the angst of ethnic groups.

Let’s make what defines us, in part, our capacity to care for each other. There are so many wonderful examples of people already doing that.

Christmas is a really busy time for everyone, but life is busy anyway. Maybe a maxim for all should be to keep the humanity in a busy world…

David Cliff is Managing Director of Gedanken and Chairman of the Institute of Directors’ Northern Sector Group.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by David Cliff .