• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

SafetyRisk.net

Humanising Safety and Embracing Real Risk

  • Home
    • About
      • Privacy Policy
      • Contact
  • FREE
    • Slogans
      • Researchers Reveal the Top 10 Most Effective Safety Slogans Of All Time
      • When Slogans Don’t Work
      • CLASSIC, FAMOUS and INFAMOUS SAFETY QUOTES
      • 500 OF THE BEST AND WORST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2023
      • CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
      • COVID-19 (Coronavirus, Omicron) Health and Safety Slogans and Quotes for the Workplace
      • Safety Acronyms
      • You know Where You Can Stick Your Safety Slogans
      • Sayings, Slogans, Aphorisms and the Discourse of Simple
      • Spanish Safety Slogans – Consignas de seguridad
      • Safety Slogans List
      • Road Safety Slogans 2023
      • How to write your own safety slogans
      • Why Are Safety Slogans Important
      • Safety Slogans Don’t Save Lives
      • 40 Free Safety Slogans For the Workplace
      • Safety Slogans for Work
    • FREE SAFETY eBOOKS
    • Free Hotel and Resort Risk Management Checklist
    • FREE DOWNLOADS
    • TOP 50
    • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS
    • Find a Safety Consultant
    • Free Safety Program Documents
    • Psychology Of Safety
    • Safety Ideas That Work
    • HEALTH and SAFETY MANUALS
    • FREE SAFE WORK METHOD STATEMENT RESOURCES
    • Whats New In Safety
    • FUN SAFETY STUFF
    • Health and Safety Training
    • SAFETY COURSES
    • Safety Training Needs Analysis and Matrix
    • Top 20 Safety Books
    • This Toaster Is Hot
    • Free Covid-19 Toolbox Talks
    • Download Page – Please Be Patient With Larger Files…….
    • SAFETY IMAGES, Photos, Unsafe Pictures and Funny Fails
    • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators
    • Download Safety Moments from Human Resources Secretariat
  • Social Psychology Of Risk
    • What is Psychological Health and Safety at Work?
    • Safety Psychology Terminology
    • Some Basics on Social Psychology & Risk
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk – Prof Karl E. Weick
    • The Psychology of Leadership in Risk
    • Conducting a Psychology and Culture Safety Walk
    • The Psychology of Conversion – 20 Tips to get Started
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk And Safety
    • Psychology and safety
    • The Psychology of Safety
    • Hot Toaster
    • TALKING RISK VIDEOS
    • WHAT IS SAFETY
    • THE HOT TOASTER
    • THE ZERO HARM DEBATE
    • SEMIOTICS
    • LEADERSHIP
  • Dr Long Posts
    • ALL POSTS
    • Learning Styles Matter
    • There is no Hierarchy of Controls
    • Scaffolding, Readiness and ZPD in Learning
    • What Can Safety Learn From Playschool?
    • Presentation Tips for Safety People
    • Dialogue Do’s and Don’ts
    • It’s Only a Symbol
    • Ten Cautions About Safety Checklists
    • Zero is Unethical
    • First Report on Zero Survey
    • There is No Objectivity, Deal With it!
  • THEMES
    • Psychosocial Safety
    • Resiliencing
    • Risk Myths
    • Safety Myths
    • Safety Culture Silences
    • Safety Culture
    • Psychological Health and Safety
    • Zero Harm
    • Due Diligence
  • Free Learning
    • Introduction to SPoR – Free
    • FREE RISK and SAFETY EBOOKS
    • FREE ebook – Guidance for the beginning OHS professional
    • Free EBook – Effective Safety Management Systems
    • Free EBook – Lessons I Have Learnt
  • Psychosocial Safety
    • What is Psychosocial Safety
    • Psychological Safety
      • What is Psychological Health and Safety at Work?
      • Managing psychosocial hazards at work
      • Psychological Safety – has it become the next Maslow’s hammer?
      • What is Psychosocial Safety
      • Psychological Safety Slogans and Quotes
      • What is Psychological Safety?
      • Understanding Psychological Terminology
      • Psycho-Social and Socio-Psychological, What’s the Difference?
      • Build a Psychologically Safe Workplace by Taking Risks and Analysing Failures
      • It’s not weird – it’s a psychological safety initiative!
You are here: Home / Mental health / Safety, Risk and The Pathway of Loneliness

Safety, Risk and The Pathway of Loneliness

September 14, 2022 by Rob Sams 12 Comments

Originally posted on April 24, 2017 @ 4:14 PM

Safety, Risk and The Pathway of Loneliness

Depositphotos_15629319_xsIt must be one of the great absurdities of our modern world; that in a time where our ability to ‘connect’ is so abundant, that we are perhaps lonelier, more isolated and insecure than ever. It’s a puzzling irony that while we can ‘connect’ to so many people, in so many ways, that this ‘connection’ may create loneliness.

Our lives are in danger of becoming divorced from any idea of community that is meaningful. In so many areas of our (modern) lives, the idea of community and ‘communing’ have given way to ‘likes’, ‘shares’ and ‘the privitisation of self’. Our (western) society, addicted to utility, entraps people into a world of efficiency, efficacy and ultimately loneliness. Let’s explore.

I had a chance catch up with Carol today, we hadn’t spoken for quite a while. There was no special reason for the catch up, yet it was special. She was bursting with pride and love, telling me about little Geraldine, her nearly three-year-old daughter. Carol is a single mum who works full time and she is feeling exhausted; yet at the same time energised. She talked of both the challenges as well as the joys of work, and of motherhood; both things providing (often simultaneously) enjoyment and struggle. Life is full of competing tensions,

Carol has little ‘down time’, yet still, she took the time to be with me. During our chat, I was concerned about nothing but Carol and it felt to me that Carol was the same. Perhaps this was a (risky) moment of ‘meeting’; a short time where it was just ‘us’? This ‘meeting’ required no agenda, minutes, or records; rather it required presence, trust and risk. Such moments of ‘us’ are rare, but when they arrive they feel like real ‘living’; I love them. I wish (and long) for more of them.

Maybe it is their rarity that make them so special? Perhaps too it is the faith in friendship and the risk of sharing our vulnerabilities with others that contributes to their specialness? To ‘meet’ with another requires a level of intimacy and openness that can leave you feeling exposed and weak. Faith is the only way that we can deal with this as there is no assurance nor certainty that others will not abuse us in moments where we reveal ourselves to them. Likewise, we don’t know how we will respond to others. Sounds risky.

We don’t talk of faith in risk and safety though, it’s as if they the industry is blindsided instead by belief: in systems, process and method. To change would require a leap of faith, and that’s unlikely to occur anytime soon, as Safety continues to perpetuate an ideology of control, security and obedience. Safety won’t even move close to the edge of the cliff, let alone leap into the world of absurdity that is risk.

Yesterday, I was at a ‘gathering’ of another kind. While it was called a meeting, there was no ‘us’; instead countless moments of ‘I’ and ‘you’; assembled together in an appearance of us. The purpose of this type of gathering is to ‘produce’; measured by outcomes. This (so-called) meeting with its clear (and packed) agenda, started with the requisite pleasantries, creating an illusion of us. However, it moved quickly (and solely) to talk of productivity and actions. People like to leave ‘gatherings’ with a sense that risks are taken care of and controlled. When you leave a ‘meeting’, no such feeling is required.

Such gatherings often leave me feeling lonely and used (utility). Nevertheless, I still attend; I must. What’s more, I often find myself seeking them out. How strange?

I’ve come to realise that such gatherings are a necessity[1]; however, they also suck us of much life and ‘living’. They are not about people coming together as ‘beings’, rather they are an assembly of parts combining to ‘produce’. Yet, despite these gatherings often causing an empty feeling of utility, they can equally lead to a feeling of achievement. It’s strange how some reject the idea that life is interwoven with paradox…

These gatherings are an unescapable part of our existence, yet are the reason many choose no longer to exist. A meeting where there is no us, is no real ‘meeting’[2]; and despite the harmful feelings that such gatherings leave us with, we must continue to attend, it is part of living. We must also continue to take the risk and ‘meet’, in faith that others will not abuse such a gift. It is not easy.

We must also continue to wrestle with the challenges of being an ‘I’, in a world where true living requires ‘us’. Gatherings where the focus is on ‘I’ and ‘You’ naturally lead to loneliness, yet perplexingly, and at the same time, may also leave us with a feeling of accomplishment and safety.

Why are moments of ‘meeting’ so rare in our modern world?

Meetings of ‘us’ are not efficient, nor safe. Sure, they produce connection, but not ‘results’. Perhaps this is the reason we are so easily tempted toward ‘gatherings’, and further why there is so much talk of human performance and proficiency in our modern world; because we need to feel free of risk?

It is as if there is a deep force at play compelling us to feel productive in everything we do. Is it this force that steers us away from ‘meetings’? Are we enticed toward ‘gatherings’ because they (can) provide us with an illusion of ‘purpose’ and achievement? Perhaps ‘meeting’ is too costly? Maybe we want ‘cheap’ meeting, where it costs very little? There are so many questions.

Strangely (and paradoxically), despite being social beings, we seem to tolerate the lonely nature of ‘gatherings’, as we strive for a feeling of belonging and of security; a feeling that can be created when we ‘produce’ together. This is not the same type of belonging though that occurs when in moments of ‘us’. Perhaps both types of belonging are required, despite being so different?

In the face of the obvious answer to such a question, and regardless of the anxiety we may feel when we utilise each other to ‘produce’, we continue to expect proficiency, worth and safety in all areas of our lives. Feasibly, it is the tension that such expectations create, when compared with our lived experiences of; mistakes, fallibility, and hurt, that we must learn to co-exist with, as we desperately await the next (rare) moment of us (living)?

Can there be any true living without ‘us’ moments? Can we produce living? Perhaps real living is something that (only occasionally) emerges as we connect and bond with others?

When Carol and I ‘met’, there was no consideration of, or need for an outcome. Our ‘meeting’ wasn’t planned, nor was it expected. Challengingly, our next encounter may be different as we revert to the more commonly experienced moments of I/You; that’s life. Such moments are hard to escape in a world of necessity that is preoccupied with ‘producing’ and security. Loneliness though, is so often the unintended by-product; it must be.

This loneliness is an unavoidable part of what it means to be human, we are surrounded by it. Despite the social nature of our ‘being,’ we can easily spend much of our time on a pathway of loneliness and disconnectedness. Could this be an addiction?

Plausibly we are addicted to ‘producing’, thus leading to loneliness; all the while we crave connection and togetherness. Perhaps in a strange way, we are simultaneously both social and self-interested beings. Is it one of life’s great challenges that we must learn to live as an ‘I’ while seeking out special moments of ‘us’?

Life seems full of questions, here are just some that we can further ponder:

· How do we resist the addiction of the pathway of loneliness?

· Is the pathway of loneliness also a way of risk aversion?

· What are the unconscious forces that drive us toward the pathway of loneliness?

· What can we do when we see others being seduced by the pathway of loneliness?

· What fears may you need to overcome to ‘meet’ rather than ‘gather’.

What challenging questions to grapple with. I guess that’s living?

 

Author:

Robert Sams

Email: robert@dolphyn.com.au

Web: www.dolphyn.com.au

Book: Social Sensemaking – Click HERE to Order


[1] Ellul, J. (1976) The Ethics of Freedom. Eerdmans Publishing Company

[2] Long, G. (2013) Love Over Hate. Finding Life by the Wayside The Slattery Media Group

  • Bio
  • Latest Posts
  • More about Rob
Rob Sams

Rob Sams

Owner at Dolphyn
Rob Sams

Latest posts by Rob Sams (see all)

  • What Can ‘Safety’ Learn From a Rock? - March 14, 2023
  • Do we Need a Different Way of Being in Safety? - February 21, 2023
  • The Challenges for Organisations in Dealing with Mental Health - February 21, 2023
  • What Safety and Risk Could Learn From Patch Adams - February 15, 2023
  • Am I stupid? I didn’t think of that… - January 13, 2023
Rob Sams
Rob is an experienced safety and people professional, having worked in a broad range of industries and work environments, including manufacturing, professional services (building and facilities maintenance), healthcare, transport, automotive, sales and marketing. He is a passionate leader who enjoys supporting people and organizations through periods of change. Rob specializes in making the challenges of risk and safety more understandable in the workplace. He uses his substantial skills and formal training in leadership, social psychology of risk and coaching to help organizations understand how to better manage people, risk and performance. Rob builds relationships and "scaffolds" people development and change so that organizations can achieve the meaningful goals they set for themselves. While Rob has specialist knowledge in systems, his passion is in making systems useable for people and organizations. In many ways, Rob is a translator; he interprets the complex language of processes, regulations and legislation into meaningful and practical tasks. Rob uses his knowledge of social psychology to help people and organizations filter the many pressures they are made anxious about by regulators and various media. He is able to bring the many complexities of systems demands down to earth to a relevant and practical level.

Please share our posts

  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Mental health, Risk Aversion, Rob Sams Tagged With: loneliness, safety moments

Reader Interactions

Do you have any thoughts? Please share them below Cancel reply

Primary Sidebar

Search and Discover More on this Site

Never miss a post - Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,516 other subscribers

Recent Comments

  • Rob Long on Culture and Risk Workshop – Feedback
  • Andrew Floyd on Culture and Risk Workshop – Feedback
  • Leon Lindley on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Rob Long on Entertainment, Suckers and Making Money From Safety
  • Rob Long on Celebrating 60 Years of Lifeline
  • Gregg Ancel on Entertainment, Suckers and Making Money From Safety
  • Rob Sams on Celebrating 60 Years of Lifeline
  • Rob long on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Rob Long on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Rob Long on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Rob Long on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Admin on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Leon Lindley on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Admin on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Mariaa Sussan on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Brian Darlington on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Leon Lindley on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Narelle Stoll on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Narelle Stoll on Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Brian Edwin Darlington on SPoR Workshops Vienna 26-30 June

RECOMMENDED READING

viral post – iso 45003 and what it cannot do

Introduction to SPOR – FREE!!

Psychosocial Safety and Mental Health Series

Celebrating 60 Years of Lifeline

Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness

Duty of Care is NOT Duty to Care (for persons)

Safety, Ethics, SPoR and How to Foster the Abuse of Power

Psychosocial Spin – Naming Bad as Good, Good Work Safety!

How to Manage Psychosocial Risks in your organisation

The Delusions of AI, Risk and Safety

Health, the Poor Cousin of Safety

Psychosocial Health Conversations – Three

Conversations About Psychosocial Risk – Greg Smith, Dr Craig Ashhurst and Dr Rob Long

More Posts from this Category

NEW! Free Download

Please take our 2 minute zero survey

FREE eBOOK DOWNLOADS

Footer

VIRAL POST – The Risk Matrix Myth

Top Posts & Pages. Sad that most are so dumb but this is what safety luves

  • 500 OF THE BEST AND WORST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2023
  • Free Safety Moments and Toolbox Talk Examples, Tips and Resources
  • CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
  • Road Safety Slogans 2023
  • Culture and Risk Workshop - Feedback
  • 15 Safety Precautions When Working With Electricity
  • Safety Acronyms
  • CLASSIC, FAMOUS and INFAMOUS SAFETY QUOTES
  • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators
  • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS, CHECKISTS, REGISTERS, TEMPLATES and APPS

Recent Posts

  • Competing Values Framework and SPoR
  • Culture and Risk Workshop – Feedback
  • The Myth of Certainty and Prediction in Risk
  • Practical Case Studies in SPoR Presented at Vienna Workshops
  • Risk iCue Video
  • Rethinking Leadership in Risk
  • ‘Can’t Means Won’t Try’ – The Challenge of Being Challenged
  • Gesture and Symbol in Safety, the Force of Culture
  • Human Factors is Never About Humans
  • Celebrating 60 Years of Lifeline
  • Smart Phone Addiction, FOMO and Safety at Work
  • Entertainment, Suckers and Making Money From Safety
  • Breaking the Safety Code
  • The Futility of the Centralised Safety Management System?
  • Liking and Not Liking in Safety, A Tale of In-Group and Out-Groupness
  • Risk iCue Video Two – Demonstration
  • Radical Uncertainty
  • The Safety Love Affair with AI
  • Safety is not a Person, Safety as an Archetype
  • Duty of Care is NOT Duty to Care (for persons)
  • What Can ‘Safety’ Learn From a Rock?
  • Safety, Ethics, SPoR and How to Foster the Abuse of Power
  • Psychosocial Spin – Naming Bad as Good, Good Work Safety!
  • SPoR Workshops Vienna 26-30 June
  • What Theory of Learning is Embedded in Your Investigation Methodology?
  • How to Manage Psychosocial Risks in your organisation
  • Risk You Can Eat
  • Triarachic Thinking in SPoR
  • CLLR NEWSLETTER–March 2023
  • Hoarding as a Psychosis Against Uncertainty
  • The Delusions of AI, Risk and Safety
  • Health, the Poor Cousin of Safety
  • Safety in The Land of Norom from the Book of Nil
  • Psychosocial Health Conversations – Three
  • Conversations About Psychosocial Risk – Greg Smith, Dr Craig Ashhurst and Dr Rob Long
  • Jingoism is NOT Culture, but it is for Safety
  • CLLR Special Edition Newsletter – Giveaways Update
  • The Disembodied Human and Persons in Safety
  • 200,000 SPoR Book Downloads
  • What SPoR Network is.
  • Trinket Safety
  • How to Know if Safety ‘Works’
  • Due Diligence is NOT Quantitative
  • SPoR Community Network
  • Conversations About Psychosocial Risk Session 2 – Greg Smith, Dr Craig Ashhurst and Dr Rob Long
  • The Psychology of Blaming in Safety
  • By What Measure? Safety?
  • Safe Work Australia a Vision for No Vision
  • Do we Need a Different Way of Being in Safety?
  • Non Common Sense Mythology

VIRAL POST!!! HOW TO QUIT THE SAFETY INDUSTRY

FEATURED POSTS

The Social Psychology of Risk Handbook, i-thou

It’s Always About Paperwork

More Realistic Swiss Cheese Symbol

Safety Career Highlight

An Introduction to Semiotics and Risk

A Critique of Pure Reason

Censorship in Safety

Investigations and Truth Telling

A Great Comparison of Risk and Safety Schools of Thought

Safety – Learning by Doing and Learning by Theory

Humanising Workplace Health and Safety Management

No Hope for Safety

Free Books – 66 Downloads for Tackling Risk

Safety and Risk Leadership Master Class

The Psychology of Leadership in Risk

Anchoring Safety to Objects

The Attraction of Simple and Easy in Safety

Who is Responsible?

The Worm at the Core

The Strange Challenge of Unlearning in Safety

Wellness, Mindfulness and Resiliencing in Psychological Safety

Suicide Prevention – a Social Psychological Perspective

I Just Want Clear Answers

Please Don’t Try to Fix Me – I’m Not a Machine

The Risk Aversion Delusion

Words Can Change Your Brain

Why Safety Isn’t a Choice You Make

Psychometric Testing and Safety

Risky Conversations, The Law, Social Psychology and Risk

Safety and The Sunk Cost Fallacy

Clarity Enabled

Starting Points, Worldviews and Risk

There is no ‘Satellite Insightfulness’

Safety-1, Safety-2, Safety-3

Practical Case Studies in SPoR Presented at Vienna Workshops

Ethics, Morality and an Ethic of Risk

Predictably Arational, Safety as a Superstition

What or Who Is Safety?

Concept Mapping Risk iCue

Subliminal and Subconscious Influence

More Posts from this Category

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,516 other subscribers

How we pay for the high cost of running of this site – try it for free on your site

WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY?

What is Psychological Safety at Work?


WHAT IS PSYCHOSOCIAL SAFETY