Sharpening our social skills

THE story of the cure of the ten lepers (cfr. Lk 17,11-19)

clearly tells us that Christ highly values the details of sociability.

We should never underestimate the importance of developing the social

skills since these can only create a healthy, happy and fruitful

environment that would be good to all of us.

            He expects us, for example, to be thankful always since

everything good that we enjoy and that we usually take for granted

comes from him. Neglecting this detail will already lead us to

separate ourselves from God and from others and lead us to be

self-absorbed.

            The social skills expected of us help to strengthen our

unity and our sense of being children of God and brothers and sisters

to each other. This is a fundamental truth about ourselves that not

only should never be forgotten but also should be reaffirmed and

reinforced everyday.

            We really need to pause from time to time to recover the

memory of this duty, often lost in the frenzy of our daily activities

and concerns. It would be good that in our daily planning, we

concretize the details of these social skills that we need to develop

and polish.

            It may just be a matter of smiling some more during the

day, greeting people around, expressing warmth and affection to them,

etc. These, and many others, go a long way in creating a very humane

atmosphere around where everyone would feel good.

            We need to grow daily in the area of affability, courtesy,

loyalty, empathy, compassion, etc. We need to examine ourselves so as

to be more aware of the weaknesses we have in these aspects and to do

something about them.

            We are usually subjected to certain conditionings, like

our temperament, our physical, emotional and mental state in a given

moment, etc. While we cannot fully escape them, we have to learn to

transcend them when we notice the limiting or restricting character of

these conditionings.

            We can always do that if we simply are aware of these

limitations and have the mind to do something about them. A person who

happens to have a stern face, for example, and yet has a good

disposition towards everyone, may have to exert to smile more to

soften the sharpness of his facial features and can appear more

welcoming and friendly to others.

            Or a person who is by temperament of the quiet and cold

type may have to exert effort to talk more and to show more warmth in

his manners. The ideal is that it is automatic in us to be always nice

and friendly with everyone, in spite of our unavoidable differences

and conflicts.

            We have to learn how to dominate our moods that would

usually cut us from the loop of the relationship we ought to have with

others. With moods, we are simply at the mercy of our emotional and

psychological conditions. We have to learn to go beyond them.

            Developing our social skills will definitely be a

continual work in progress. But everyday we should have specific plans

to grow at least in one aspect of our social skills. It will not take

too much time nor effort, and it will be all worthwhile.

            The end product will be a happier us and a more effective

way of dealing with others. Ultimately, these social skills will make

us to be pleasing to God, and to be like him in the end. He went all

the way to becoming man and identifying himself with each one us,

including assuming all our sins!