“You remembered my name!”
Andy, an elderly man in his early seventies, and bent over slightly by the cares of the world, sees me from across the room in the lobby at a fashionable Tucson hotel. As he comes up to me and stretches out his hand, I do the same and add, with a broad smile, “Hi, Andy, great to see you again!” His eyes light up and his smile grows wide. “You remembered my name!” he exclaims.
We are both at an event for a client of my company, and I remembered him from his involvement with yet a different client of my company, but years ago. Andy had volunteered his time with a charitable organization back then, had to step away from that work, but now was volunteering his time with the client that brought us both to that hotel lobby that chilly and late December evening.
“Dunbar’s number” is a “suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships—relationships in which an individual knows who each person is and how each person relates to every other person,” according to Professor Wikipedia. British anthropologist Robin Dunbar proposed this idea in the 1990s and I’ve found it quite fascinating as I step back and think about just how many people I know and know by name, and more than this. Dubar’s number is 150 people, meaning that, on average, a person can maintain a healthy and comfortable relationship with about 150 people. I don’t know if Andy would be included in my “Dunbar’s number,” but I do know Andy’s first and last name, and I do know that he volunteers his time to organizations he cares about – and that tells me something about him, something very good.
On the issue of names – something I have been writing about and speaking about for nearly three decades, with respect to Macedonia – I think we all know how important names are, and how we, each individually, enjoy hearing our names. When I sit down at a restaurant, when I check out of the grocery store, anytime I interact with someone with a nametag on, I try to remember that name and then use it. It almost always puts a smile on that someone’s face which in turn, brings a smile to my face. And that is yet another reason why I will always say and use the name Macedonia – because that is the name Macedonians have chosen for themselves, and use, and no amount of interference by certain members of the Macedonian government, other countries, the US State Department, EU foreign policy bureaucrats, or any others will change that fact.
But this column is not about the Macedonian name or politics. Given that Macedonian Orthodox believers will celebrate Christmas this coming Sunday (and me among them), this is about Christmas.
Christmas, of course, is when Christians around the world celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Son of God, come to save the world. Granted, the salvation part of his life would not be possible without His death and resurrection, but He had to be born first, fully human and fully God. And that is why we give gifts to each other, because that first gift that first Christmas, was the gift of God’s own son. And because of that gift, we can have a relationship with the one true God of all that was, is, and is yet to come. That really is mind-blowing when you stop to think about it.
What gifts do you give to others, starting with your family, and then expanding out from there? Beyond the gifts of physical, material things, what do you give? Even if you have little, in terms of material blessings, you can give the gift of your time, like my friend Andy has done in volunteering his time to the needs of others. You can give the gift of a good attitude, a smile, or using someone’s name, making them feel wanted, needed, important. There is much to be said for attending to the needs of others in the way we behave towards them because when we behave rightly, even if they may not deserve it, we both benefit. If you ask me what the best possible path to peace is, in your own home or in the world, I’d have to say that having right relationships with others is a good place to start.
In the book by Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, the Ghost of Christmas Present tells Ebeneezer Scrooge, shortly before the Ghost leaves Scrooge, “Scrooge, there is never enough time to do, or to say, all that we wish. The thing of it is to make the most of your time on this earth because suddenly, you’re not there anymore!”
In the year now before us, my desire – and my goal – is to do more to make the most of my time on this earth, particularly when it comes to my relationships with people, first family, then friends, and then total strangers. That often involves sacrificing my own time and my own needs but as I’ve found throughout life, being right with others is so much more important. And it helps to be right with God, first. I pray that becomes your desire, and goal, too.
Merry Christmas, my Macedonian family and friends!