I wish every person would read this book: How to Know a Person, by David Brooks. Early on, Brooks says that when you find a healthy person, you find someone who has the ability to help others feel seen. It might seem silly to have a 250-page manual on how to know a person, but I think this book was timely when it was published and continues to be timely today. One of the recurring conversations I keep having, with friends, with family, and in my work as a spiritual director and wisdom collaborator, is that we’re struggling to know how to sustain good, meaningful relationships. There’s more distrust, more caution, more division. And there’s a constant sense of false connection we get when we engage with other people digitally.
Brooks describes his own journey here, and it’s one I can echo in my own. He realized that for most of his life he hadn’t actually had many rich, deep, authentic relationships, and it became something he had to choose and learn how to do. For me, one of the rhythms that has become a real priority is spending at least one hour a week with someone outside my family who will ask me how I’m doing, who I can be completely honest with, and who I can ask the same in return. I have to be intentional about putting those relationships on my calendar.
What I appreciated as much as anything is how he closes the book, with a chapter on wisdom. Wisdom isn’t something a person possesses. It exists between people. As we exchange ideas and hold reflections from my life in tension with reflections from yours, wisdom is birthed in that space between two people. So if we want lives with more wisdom in them, wisdom is a byproduct of these kinds of deep and meaningful relationships. Have you read this book? What helps you cultivate and foster relationships in your own life?