I stopped counting the amount of times I heard the phrase “You don’t owe him anything” in the last 6 months, or during the course of my life for that matter. How often do we shrug things off, with “I don’t owe them anything?”

But the truth is we do. We owe each other the act of humanness. Do you owe anybody who’s been hit by a natural disaster anything? Think of 9.11 or hurricane Katrina or the Haiti earthquake. Now, think of man made atrocities like the war and genocide or  armed attacks in schools. Do you owe these people anything? And yet, so many of us reach out to help with fervour. Why? Because we’re human.  How is that different from the humanness required in our everyday lives with the people in proximity to us. This post is for all of us because we’ve all shrugged things off under the above quoted pretext.

We think we’re disconnected from the macrocosm?  Our microcosm nourishes the macrocosm. One is the extension of the other. If you’re unhappy with the state of things on a larger scale, the best place to start is the small scale state of your personal interactions.  We brush basic things off as if they have no impact on the masses towards a higher state of consciousness.  Ghandi said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world”. Our single interactions, choices, behaviours create the state of consciousness of the world. We owe each other the truth when it would otherwise be easier to lie, the awkward conversation that will lead to clarity and freedom, understanding when blame would be the default. Collaborative forgiveness. Kindness and love – the same way we extend it victims of catastrophes. Clean soil, edible non-poisonous food, a helping hand. Well meaning intentions. Our singular choices string together to create waves of human behaviour. If we tolerate less than what it takes to make our small microcosms safe both physically and emotionally, expansive, supporting and nourishing to life, how then, can we expect our lives, societal choices and behaviours to reflect this on larger scale. Of course, it will never be a perfect world, otherwise how would we entertain ourselves (without challenges to keep us on our toes). But we could all benefit from a some added human inter-connectedness. What you do (or don’t do) for your neighbour – you are inflicting on yourself.  You may think you don’t them anything, but you owe yourself everything.

SuzyQ