World Hello Day
Having World Hello Day last week got us thinking.
Now Fingley World has a huge presence on social media, on Twitter, Facebook and many more. In a world like this you must. How else would we spread our message as wide?
Technology is a fantastic tool. It really is. It helps us stay in contact with far away friends, it maybe makes us feel that little bit less lonely. Social media is definitely a community of its own. It’s almost like a parallel world. You always feel like you are dipping in and out of a constantly changing environment. Every time you log back on, your newsfeed has updated, there are new posts, new conversations. It is a busy world of its own.
Because we are so talkative on social media, or at least feel like we’re being, as we begin to feel social even while we’re just observing everybody else, it is very easy to forget that we might not quite be as social in real life.
When was the last time you said hello to a complete stranger on the street? When was the last time you acknowledged your bus driver? Or your postman? Have you ever said hello to that same girl that serves you on the till every Friday?
Mmm… we thought so.
While technology is great, and it advances us in many ways, it has also slowed a lot of our human progress down. In the doctor’s surgery or a bus stop, we don’t even look up from our phones anymore. We don’t make eye contact anymore. We don’t use that time like we used to. We don’t engage in small talk, we don’t make conversation. We find it awkward now, when it should be the most natural thing in the world.
Humans are naturally sociable. They aren’t meant to live in solitude, and sitting behind a screen, while better than nothing, doesn’t have half as much of a positive effect as actually sitting across from someone and talking to them.
‘Hello’, ‘Hi’, ‘Hola’, ‘Namaste’ and ‘Salaam’ are more than just polite exchanges, they have the potential to mend ties and break down the toughest of barriers. How important was that first ‘hello’ that you said to a stranger all that time ago? Ten years later and they are still your best friend. That distant friend that you greeted, and twenty years later you’re still married to them. Saying hello is the first building block to an unknown relationship.
World Hello Day was initiated globally after the Yom Kippur War in 1973 as a way of encouraging peace by putting aside conflict and beginning afresh with healthy communication and not force.
Now people are using World Hello Day to send a message to world leaders, encouraging them to use communication rather than force to settle conflicts.
So, take their challenge and show your support for world peace. Show your support for communication and try to inspire traditional values where you can. Put the phone down at the bus stop. Make eye contact with your retail server, and try to say ‘hello’ at least five times a day.
We promise. It could make all the difference.
http://www.worldhelloday.org/
