Aren’t People Great!

Our world is a dumpster fire. I don’t know how else to say it.

Wendell Berry’s poem “The Peace of Wild Things” begins with the despair of the world. I feel that line in my bones. There is so much to be disillusioned by. So much suffering, cruelty, and disregard for one another. It can be hard to know what to do with it all, much less how to keep showing up with any sense of hope.

And then I sit down with a client.

There’s a moment at the beginning of a coaching session when we’re settling in. We catch up a little. We take a breath. We move past the quick answer to “How are you?” and begin to talk about what’s really going on.

Sometimes a person arrives with a problem they want to solve. Sometimes they’re trying to make sense of a decision, a relationship, or a season of life that has left them feeling uncertain. Sometimes they don’t quite know what they need to say until they start saying it.

And then something happens.

As we make room for the conversation to unfold, I get to witness people thinking out loud, wrestling with complicated questions, recognizing something they hadn't seen before, or finding words for a feeling they've been carrying around for a long time. I hear about the people they love, the responsibilities they take seriously, the things they wish they could change, and the kind of person they want to be in the midst of it all.

I hear honesty. Humor. Tenderness. Courage. I hear people trying, often imperfectly, to care for one another and make their way through a world that doesn't always make much sense.

And I find myself thinking, AREN’T PEOPLE GREAT?!

Not because people are always good at being people. We aren't. We hurt one another. We get defensive. We make assumptions, miss things, and sometimes cause the very harm we're trying to prevent. I'm not interested in pretending otherwise.

But I do think we sometimes underestimate what is possible when people have the chance to be fully present with themselves and one another.

So much of our daily lives asks us to be productive, decisive, competent, and quick with an answer. We learn to keep moving, to manage our reactions, to make ourselves useful. Even in our relationships, we can be so busy responding, fixing, advising, and explaining that we miss what's actually happening with the person in front of us.

Listening interrupts that pattern.

In coaching, I don't try to fix things for the person I’m sitting with. I don't have to know where the conversation should go or have the perfect thing to say. My work is to listen carefully, ask a good question, and make room for the person to hear themselves more clearly.

What emerges in that space is often something that couldn't have been planned. A new perspective. A little more honesty. A connection between things that had seemed unrelated. Sometimes a laugh. Sometimes tears. Sometimes simply the relief of saying something out loud and having it met with care instead of judgment.

I don't think this happens because coaching is magic. I think it happens because people are remarkable, and we don't always give ourselves or one another the conditions we need to remember that.

I wish I could bottle up what I witness in these conversations and send it out into the world. Not as proof that everything is fine. It isn't. Not as an argument that individual kindness can solve systemic problems. It can't. And certainly not as a reason to turn away from the very real things that need our attention and action.

But as a reminder.

The despair of the world is real. So is the person trying to figure out how to show up for a struggling friend. The leader wondering how to care for the people in their charge without losing themselves in the process. The person willing to reconsider something they've believed for years. The one who keeps trying to find a more honest, more generous way forward.

These things don't cancel each other out. We need to be able to see both.

This is the part of this work that is so life giving. In a world that can make us feel cynical about people, I get regular reminders of the depth, complexity, and beauty of the human spirit. I get to see what can happen when someone is given a little room to breathe, think, and be heard.

I leave these conversations a little more hopeful than I arrived. Not because I think people will always get it right, but because I keep seeing what becomes possible when we make room for one another.

Aren't people great?