Hello and happy Monday Echols Family!

Tommy here, hoping you are well rested, and ready for another week in the life. I want to use this opening message to pose a question. Once we close the book on this chapter and we return to living our lives face to to face as opposed to behind computer screens, where do we all stand on handshakes? I mean, does anyone feel like the tradition of touching each others hands when we meet or when we want to say goodbye is one worth preserving? Before you go with your first-reaction answer, lets unpack handshakes a bit.

First of all, lets acknowledge that we have NEVER known where that hand has been. The reason we're giving handshakes its current hiatus, is because we want to reduce the risk of spreading this particularly dangerous new pathogen. But doesn’t this just highlight how yucky peoples hands have always been? Are you so confidant that your handshake partner has resisted the urge to lick the Cheeto dust off their fingers, or that they washed their hands properly after indulging? When was the last time they disinfected their phone? I would be more concerned about sounding hypervigilant if I didn’t have so many vivid memories of people in public restrooms blithely walking by the sink, or maybe briefly sprinkling their hands with water (no soap) before returning to the outside world.

And lets talk about the non-germ-related drawbacks to the tradition of handshakes. SO MANY PEOPLE, see the act as a make-or-break moment to send some unspoken message about how they assert themselves. Think about it, how many times have you felt peoples nervous energy in the form of a sharp, vicegrip-like assault, or felt trapped in the dreaded, lingering, “Can I have that back?” style shake? Or maybe you’ve found yourself worrying if your handshake sent unintended messages. “Did I not grip hard enough?” , “Were my hands sweaty?” , “Did I let go too early?” I’m willing to bet that plenty of the people reading this message can relate to these or similar scenarios because of the awkward and unregulated practice of shaking hands. 

Whether or not you agree with my inclination that handshakes are potentially outdated, and unnecessary, I think that we are in a unique position to reassess some of the arbitrary behaviors that we engage in and have come to accept as simply part of life. I hope that we all take advantage of this opportunity because they don’t seem to come by very often. In this vein, I’ll close with a grade A quote that I saw on Instagram today…

“In the rush to return to normal, use this time to consider which parts of normal are actually worth rushing back to.” @asafeplaceinsideyourhead

Stay Well,
Tommy Ferrier


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