How can we improve well-being through social connection?
This week, we will practice nurturing our weak ties as well as our closest relationships to improve our feelings of connectedness to our friends/family, class, and community. Please plan to practice these activities throughout the week.
Connecting with your friends/family
Schedule some time this week to spend having a conversation with a close friend or family member, ideally in-person and face-to-face. If you like, you can choose someone for this activity that you are not yet close with, but would like to become closer to (e.g., a roommate, an acquaintance). You can have this conversation during a shared activity, if you like. (Some people find it easier to have deep conversations while not maintaining eye contact.) Your goal is to nurture a deeper connection with this person, not just casual or superficial conversation. Consider some topics you might want to raise with this person during this time. For example, you could ask for their advice on an important decision, share something difficult you have been struggling with, ask them to share a personal story from their life, etc. You should also use this as an opportunity to express gratitude to this person — tell them what they mean to you and how much you appreciate having them in your life.
Connecting with your classmates
Please choose one of your classmates from this class that you would like to get to know better, and make a date to go out for coffee/tea, lunch, to the gym, for a walk around campus, on a light rail adventure, study together, etc. this week. Your goal is simply to get to know this person.
Please compliment, appreciate, or express gratitude to at least three other classmates this week, either in-person or online.
Connecting with your community
At least once this week, please commit a random act of kindness toward someone in your broader community. This can take any number of forms. Some examples: buying coffee for a stranger, letting a stranger go ahead of you in line at the grocery store, writing a note of appreciation to your postal worker or the custodian in your building, etc. You can also consider volunteering for a local group as your random act of kindness, so long as the beneficiaries of your kindness are people (e.g., a soup kitchen works; a pet shelter doesn’t).
