We are very good at stockpiling things. We fill our cupboards with food, our garages with possessions, and our bank accounts with money. We prepare for uncertain times by accumulating resources, hoping that when we need something, it will be there.
We understand the importance of preparing for scarcity. But what if there is another resource we should be stockpiling? Something that cannot be bought in a supermarket, stored in a cupboard or measured by the size of our bank balance. What if we deliberately stockpiled friendships, trust and human connection?
Preparing for the moments that matter
We often recognise the value of relationships when life becomes difficult. When someone experiences a bereavement, struggles with their mental health, faces problems at work or finds themselves in a personal crisis, we talk about the importance of having people around them. I recently experienced this after losing my mum in August.
We encourage people to reach out, speak up and ask for help. But by then, we may already be asking a lot of someone who feels isolated, vulnerable or unsure whether anybody really cares. Perhaps we should spend less time waiting for these moments to arrive and more time preparing for them. What if we invested in relationships before we needed them? A conversation over coffee. A genuine interest in a colleague’s life. Checking in with a neighbour. Making time for an old friend. Asking someone how they are doing and being prepared to listen to the answer. None of these actions is particularly remarkable. They rarely attract attention or generate headlines. Yet, over time, they build something incredibly valuable: a network of human connection that can support us when life becomes challenging. We should not wait until we are struggling to discover who cares about us. We should build those relationships long before we need them.
Connection is more than companionship
Human connection is not simply about having people to spend time with. It can influence how we behave, what we notice and whether we feel able to speak up when something is wrong. Consider the workplace. We might all work alongside dozens of people, attend the same meetings and share the same physical space. Yet proximity does not necessarily mean connection. We can sit beside someone every day without knowing how they are really doing. We can witness a colleague becoming increasingly withdrawn without feeling sufficiently connected to ask a question. We can hear a friend make a harmful comment and remain silent because challenging them feels uncomfortable. This is where relationships become particularly important.
When we know someone, we may be more likely to recognise changes in their behaviour. When trust exists between us, a difficult conversation can become easier. When we believe someone genuinely cares about us, we may be more willing to listen when they challenge something we have said or done. Connection does not guarantee courage. Nor does friendship mean we will always intervene. But relationships can create the conditions in which intervention becomes more possible. In many ways, relationships become a currency, a currency of change.
Perhaps the most effective bystanders are created long before the moment when they need to act. They are created through everyday interactions that establish trust, belonging and a shared expectation that we look out for one another.
Deposits into a human connection account
Imagine every positive interaction as a small deposit into a human connection account. A conversation. A kind word. A willingness to listen without judgement. An offer of help when nobody else notices a problem. Each deposit strengthens the relationship a little. Over time, these small actions can accumulate into something significant.
When a difficult moment arrives, there may be enough trust for someone to say, “I’m worried about you.” There may be enough mutual respect for a colleague to say, “I don’t think that was right.” There may be enough connection for a friend to challenge harmful behaviour rather than laugh along with everyone else, and there may be enough belonging for someone who is struggling to believe that asking for help will not make them a burden. This is important because active bystandership is not simply about giving people the tools to intervene. It is also about creating environments in which people feel supported and permitted to use them. We need to help people develop the confidence to act, but we should also consider the relationships that make acting easier.
The same applies to accepting intervention. A healthy culture allows us to challenge one another without treating every challenge as an attack. Perhaps we should invest as much energy in building relationships as we do in teaching people what to do when something goes wrong.
Building our stockpile
Imagine what might happen if workplaces, schools, sports clubs and neighbourhoods treated human connection as something worth deliberately building.
What if leaders measured success not only through performance but also through the quality of relationships within their teams?
What if we encouraged colleagues to know one another beyond their job titles?
What if communities created more opportunities for people of different ages and backgrounds to meet, talk and develop trust? And
What if each of us accepted some responsibility for making those connections happen?
We do not need grand gestures. We need consistency. The person who regularly checks in with a colleague may eventually notice when something changes. The friend who listens without judgement may become the person someone turns to in a crisis. The teammate who respectfully challenges a harmful joke may help establish a different standard for everyone else. We cannot predict when these relationships will matter. That is precisely why we should build them now.
The real wealth of a community
We live in a world that often encourages us to accumulate more: more money, more possessions, more status and more followers. Perhaps we should ask ourselves a different question. Not how much we own, but how much connection we have helped create. Not how many people recognise our name, but how many people know they can turn to us. Not simply whether we have good people around us, but whether we are helping to create an environment in which goodness can flourish. This matters because the strongest communities are not necessarily those without problems. They are those where people are connected enough to recognise problems, confident enough to address them and supported enough to act.
That is the promise of active bystandership: ordinary people looking out for one another, intervening early and helping to create cultures where harmful behaviour is challenged, and people are supported. Perhaps this begins with something much simpler than we imagine. A conversation. A question. An invitation. A little more time for another human being. So, the next time we think about preparing for an uncertain future, perhaps we should look beyond the cupboards, bank accounts and emergency supplies. What if we stockpiled human connection?
When difficult times arrive, the relationships we have built may prove to be among the most valuable resources we possess, and unlike many of the things we accumulate, their value grows when we share them. Don’t wait until someone needs a friend to become one. Build the connection now.
