Human Connection is at a premium

I’m a nerd at heart, always have been, always will be. I love everything from becoming Elden Lord to the walls of Helm’s Deep to picking up my wand at Olivander's. I still remember going to Universal Studios as a kid and seeing the Terminator ride. There he was, big Arnie Schwarzenegger himself, fighting the good fight against the machines. SkyNet was coming for us all.

A lot of games, movies, and books predict an end-of-the-world scenario where AI takes over.

Are we there yet? No.

Will we ever be there? I bloody hope not.

But right now, human connection feels like it’s at a premium. I sometimes feel like part of the resistance with John Connor, holding on to what’s left of real human interaction. Our days are spent staring at screens. We learn through screens, work through screens, and even date through screens. Working and studying from home only deepens the divide.

Doom-scrolling has become the new national pastime. Netflix used to be a cue for “chill” time, but now “chill” time literally means… more Netflix.

Last year, I went to the Leinster vs La Rochelle match with Dad. Ever since I was a kid, walking into the roar of Lansdowne Road gave me goosebumps. But that day, I noticed a boy, maybe eight years old, sitting beside his dad, glued to an iPad. At a live rugby game. It blew my mind. How much life experience was he missing? The bonding, the buzz, the energy, gone, traded for a screen.

And I see it everywhere now, and honestly, it scares me.

Human connection is what life’s about. We’re social creatures; we crave a tribe to belong to. It’s slipping away, but we can’t let it go.

I’m biased, of course, my career revolves around human connection. Monday to Saturday, I get to do it for a living. I throw on my Workshop T-shirt and head in to coach, to connect, to interact with people. From 6:15 a.m. to 8 p.m., it’s wall-to-wall human energy. I don’t take that for granted.

Every “hello,” every hug, every fist-bump, every “well done,”  it all matters. These are the tiny things that remind us we’re alive and part of something bigger than ourselves.

We need to appreciate how rare genuine connection has become, and notice where we find it. Like we said last week about priorities, maybe we should list where our real connections come from, and who gives them to us, and then prioritise those people.

When a chance for a real connection comes along, jump on it. For extroverts, that’s easy. For introverts like me (hard to believe, I know), it takes effort, but it’s worth it every single time. Seek it out. Make the first move. Don’t let the digital tide pull you under.

We’re all in this good fight together, the fight to protect what makes us human.

Human interactions. Human affirmation. Human laughter. Human emotion.

Places that value those things are special.

That’s why community is one of our pillars at The Workshop. It’s what keeps the place alive. Shared suffering through workouts forges a connection; it strips away social status, beliefs, and backgrounds. It makes us equals. It turns strangers into teammates, and teammates into friends, and friends into relationships.

We sweat, we struggle, we support, and in doing so, we stay human.

Come with me if you want to live.....