Stay with me, I promise this will come full circle…
Everyone, including me, teaches people to set goals, and create a clear vision. Once the vision is well-defined then you can get work on the “how to get there” strategy. In an age-old analogy, a pilot first selects the destination, then a flight plan is created. For most of us in our “life flight plan”, just as we take off and intentionally move in the direction of our desired outcome or vision, it’s guaranteed that something, some person, some unexpected event will appear to challenge it ALL.
And right now, we are ALL in the face of that challenge. For the first time in my entire life, the whole planet is facing the same challenge. During my 55 years on Earth, I have lived through nations fighting against each other, political mayhem, acts of terror, natural disasters, and many, many other tragic or even catastrophic events. Usually, what’s happening in one part of the world is known by the rest of the world – but we can feel somewhat disconnected from it. We are aware that people are in peril, or in need, or going through some difficulty. Some of us try to do something about. We pray for them, we care, we keep abreast of the situation, but at the end of the day, it isn’t our situation. We all have our own situations to deal with, right?
But today represents a unique sense of awareness and belonging that is unprecedented. As wrong, bad and uncertain everything feels, I couldn’t put my finger on what was somehow feeling right, good and certain? Today the clarity came.
Today I realized that while my heart is heavy for so many people who are not well, grieving, facing fear and loss, my heart is simultaneously full for the connection that I, and millions of others are hopefully feeling as well. Thank goodness multiple emotions can co-exist. This moment in time is a forced reminder that we are all part of one team. It’s called humanity. Literally, every person on the planet is experiencing similar events and emotions. The challenge we are facing connects us. When a sports team is playing against an adversary or cross-town rival, they support each other. They believe in each other, they put differences aside and work together, they honor and value the differences, they take their roles seriously and with a sense of responsibility for the betterment of the whole team. At the end of the day, they are tethered by the very nature of the word teammate. One of the definitions of the team is simply stated as : a number of people in joint action. We are all in joint action right now. We are all focused on staying well, on social distancing, on finding solutions to a common challenge. Everyone on the team has commonalities, like a desire for health, for happiness, for hope. I don’t know about you but I just love this team. I root for every single person on this team every day. And today, because of this uncertainty and global experience, everyone on this team, on my team and your team, on our team can really relate to each other.
The deep understanding of what someone is going through is called empathy and/or compassion. When we have walked in someone else’s shoes and similarly felt their concerns because we had a like experience – we relate to them. Empathy and compassion bring a team together, and in the face of common challenges or adversity, bonds are strengthened. We are all currently on the same page, regardless of race, religion, gender, non-gender, nationality… whatever society has tried to use to separate us or divide us into opposing teams. This. Now. What is happening today reminds us, we are on one team.
The more we experience something together, the more we recognize and step into our responsibility to the team. Hopefully, we also recognize the privilege that it is simply to be on it. That communal experience also brings us closer to the ultimate goal or vision of any team, which is deep mutual respect, unity, resonance, coherence, joy, and the collective achievement and expansion. Yes… I believe that the goal our team humanity is to experience unconditional love, joy and peace as we grow, expand and create as one awesome bunch of humans.
So, coming full circle as I started this article, everyone, including me, teaches people to create a vision. My hope is that we create individual visions for our own lives and families, AND that we recognize the grand global vision of having one amazing team experience love, joy and peace as we grow and create as one.