On Social Distancing

This was originally shared in my newsletter that I send out bi-weekly on what I'm learning and writing about in the topics of mindfulness, relationships, and technology.

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This past Friday evening, while walking around Vancouver, I called one of my closest friend's Louis - excited to catch up with him while in town. He shared that his dad has the flu, is being tested for Covid-19, and that we shouldn't see each other until the test results come back.

Social distancing has been the phrase to encompass this behaviour.

For me, the hardest aspect of social distancing is not being able to go into the office. Without a workplace to go to every day I've been feeling quite lonely. Human connection is not the same while working or studying from home. There's something special about being able to run into your colleagues in the break room, set up a coffee/lunch with them, and is why I enjoy working at Linkedin so much. I have so many wonderful people around me.

How can we recreate these moments of serendipitous human connection? I've been trying my best to connect with friends over a video conference or phone calls, making sure for at least an hour a day I'm catching up with someone.

To help you do the same, and with the inspiration of our internal team who started this last week, I'm exploring a new activity to stay connected while most of us are home in the coming weeks, leveraging our LinkedIn community: Virtual Coffee Chats ? 

 Please let me know if you are interested by filling out this form.

 Why should you do this? For the ability to meet like-minded people in a moment where we feel increasingly isolated. I'll only be connecting folks that I know, and you can trust that I'll provide a worthwhile introduction that will lead to a worthwhile conversation. 

How would it work? When you opt-in, you will be randomly paired with another member (or multiple members) of this LinkedIn community. I'll introduce you via email, and you will set up a time to connect. 

We all need human interaction to support our mental health and overall wellbeing. In a time that we may struggle to create these interactions in person, let's use our technology to attempt to recreate these moments.