For ten years, I have spent my Monday evenings attending rehearsals (排练) for my amateur (业余的) choir. Mondays are not my favorite day, and I often arrive feeling bad, but by the end of the rehearsal, I usually feel energized. The singing does me good. So do the people. I wouldn’t describe my choir members as close friends. We exchange brief chats, smiles and jokes but that is enough for me to feel better about the world.

There is no choir practice now. I miss it. In lockdown, I do not feel short on emotional support, but I do feel short of friendly faces and casual (随便的) conversations. Another way of putting this is that I miss my “weak ties”.

One way to think about any person’s social world is that you have an inner circle of people whom you often talk to and feel close with, and an outer circle of people whom you see sometimes. Mark Granovetter, a sociology professor at Stanford University, named these categories (种类) “strong ties” and “weak ties”.

Experts had thought that a person’s happiness depended mainly on the quality of their relationships with their close friends and family. Granovetter showed that quantity (数量) mattered, too. He found that for new information and ideas, weak ties are more important to us than strong ones. Granovetter surveyed 282 Boston-based workers and found that most of them got their jobs through someone they knew. But only a few got the job through a close friend; 84% got their job through those weak-tie relationships. As Granvetter pointed out, the people whom you spend much time with swim in the same pool of information as you do. We depend on friendly outsiders to bring us news of opportunities.

So we should continue to find ways to develop weak-tie relationships in lockdown. We can use social media to reach out to people we don’t know well for light, but meaningful communications. We can also make more weak-tie-style conversations with our strong ties. The goal is to let others know you are thinking of them without asking for a great deal of time or energy.

While some gossip can be annoying and unprofessional, other types of gossiping can be fun, normal, even healthy and productive. Experts say that talking about others behind their backs doesn’t have to be a guilty office pastime — it can be a useful tool to direct the workplace and learn important information. “I think, generally, gossip is a good thing,” says Elena Martinescu, a research associate who’s studied the psychology of gossiping. “According to evolutionary theory, humans have developed gossip in order to form cooperation on a group.”

By talking about other people, we can learn whom to cooperate with and whom to stay away from, something that helps a group work better together. “This fixed behavior translates to the modern workplace.” she says, “It is equally important to be aware of which colleagues one can trust and who one should be careful with.”

“Gossip confirms the value of our emotions and can help us figure out where other people stand on things,” she says, “and gossip can help us make sure if we’re perceiving the world in the same way as other colleagues and coworkers receive it.” It is really about information gathering. So, if someone at work says something like Ralph has been taking a lot of sick leave recently,” it could open the door for others to share their judgments and evaluations that maybe Ralph’s frequent sick leave could account for his poor job performance, for example. It can help you calculate how much sick leave is regarded as “appropriate” among your colleagues as well as who is empathetic or mean towards Ralph.

Sometimes, though, gossiping is just random talks about people or structures you dislike. Maybe it’s tyrannous boss, or the team that work slowly. Yet this gossip can still provide a network of observations and warnings that provide an informal instruction of support outside traditional workplace channels like HR.

“There is nothing noble (高尚的) in being superior (优秀的) to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.” —— Ernest Hemingway

As Hemingway says, self-improvement is a noble cause. 【小题1】 Much of who we are is determined by how we relate with others around us. When we seek to improve ourselves, we can also make our relationships with others better.

【小题2】 If you have a good self-image, then others are likely to relate to you in a positive way. When people see a self-controlled and confident individual, they are likely to be affected in a positive way. And this can result in a more optimistic and constructive relationship.

Only when you have accepted who you are can you grow. If you continuously fight against yourself, you won’t have the emotional energy you need to better yourself. If you wish to get on with people better, then you may start by accepting yourself. 【小题3】

If you are on a personal path that is going upwards, then you are likely to find a friend or partner who is also seeking to better themselves and their circumstances. 【小题4】

Focusing on your good qualities and attempting to protect and improve these characteristics will help you become a better person. 【小题5】 When you stop damaging who you are, you are likely to avoid ruining relationships and this can lead to longer and more meaningful connections with others.