An invitation to something larger…
Being grateful for those who have contributed to your success will bring you satisfaction and equanimity Things can get pretty small. With so many transactional relationships in our life, it’s easy to miss out on the feeling of truly belonging or that someone really cares. In a Gallup poll it was discovered that one of the main reasons that people stay on and not leave a job is that someone cares about them, cares about their career.
How dear is a friendship? Not who follows you on Twitter or Facebook or who you are connected to on Linkedin but someone who really cares about you. Where is the gratitude for your friends and your gratitude for interdependence?
Perhaps you know it is a good idea to try to connect with your employees or coworkers. Certainly this is a good idea but do you really think about the interdependence of your connection. It’s easy to slip into the feeling of success and attribute that to yourself and feel proud. How many countless people have contributed to your success? How grateful are you? Not just for your network and your mentors or the people who work with and for you. What about the person who cleans or the person in accounting or IT? What about the person who fixes the elevator or cares for your children? What about the garage attendant or the cable guy or the person who waits on you at lunch? Step into the realization of interdependence and you will bring a very different energy to people around you.
When you find yourself grumpy or feeling down maybe even overwhelmed, it may be because you haven’t been grateful or deeply understood interdependence. Gratitude is the antidote to feeling special, especially special and alone.
Interdependence is the key to being successful and it is also the key to our spiritual life. We give thanks and say grace at meals no matter if you are Christian, Jewish, Buddhist or any other. Most religious practices realize the importance of gratitude but do you really think about the food? The worn and calloused hands that picked the strawberry or the people who packed the crates or drove the trucks? The people in the grocery store who work hard and the people who haul the garbage and clean the streets? There is an invitation here to see deeper into the connection of all that we are.
The more grateful you are and the more deeply you see your interdependence, the more you will connect with something greater than yourself. Accept this invitation to allow grace into your life.