I remember standing in line at a coffee shop a few years back, completely stressed about year-end deadlines. The barista handed me my coffee and said “Merry Christmas” while actually looking me in the eye.

It wasn’t the words themselves. It was that she paused.

In that moment, I wasn’t just another transaction. I was seen. That two-second interaction shifted my entire day because it reminded me that connection doesn’t require complexity—it just requires presence.

We’re Busy Engineering Meaning While Missing Where It Actually Lives

I see this constantly in corporate settings. Leaders organize elaborate team-building retreats, send lengthy heartfelt emails with perfectly crafted messages, or create complex recognition programs.

Then they walk past someone in the hallway without making eye contact.

We’ve convinced ourselves that connection requires a strategy, a budget, a program. But real connection happens in the margins. It’s the pause, the eye contact, the moment where you’re fully there.

The Armor of Complexity

I think we’re afraid that simplicity won’t be enough—that we won’t be enough.

There’s something vulnerable about showing up in a simple moment. When you design an elaborate program, you can hide behind the effort. You can point to the budget, the planning, the thought that went into it.

But when you pause in a hallway and really see someone? There’s nowhere to hide. You’re just you, being present with another person.

The complexity is actually armor.

What Gets Remembered

A team-building retreat gets talked about, gets budget approval, goes on the calendar. But a two-second pause with eye contact? That’s invisible to everyone except the two people in it.

It doesn’t show up in any report.

So we discount it, even though those invisible moments are often what people remember years later—like me with that barista.

This holiday season, maybe the most meaningful thing you can offer isn’t wrapped in paper or scheduled on a calendar. Maybe it’s just being fully present when you say “Merry Christmas.”