The Renewal of Human Potential

I remember reading a few years ago about a theory that says we all have a pre-existing connection with every single person that we meet in our lifetime — and that one of the saddest facts of life is that most of us have simply given up trying to decipher what it is — or perhaps never even tried in the first place.

I hope that this is not true, because a universal lack of interest in those around us would make us a society of judgmental narcissists.

Instead, my hope is that we would finally begin to view the world for what it is — an endless source of opportunities to learn how to successfully build connectedness in such a way that it advances the state of humanity as a whole — with each of us playing a distinct, but equally important, role.

As altruistic as this may sound, there is no reason that this can’t be the case.

So why then is this not what we experience?

Perhaps it’s because we live in a time when we are allowing our own egos to blind us from this simple truth.

Perhaps it is just our erroneous notion that “we” are more important than our fellow man and as such, it blocks us from accessing a far more connected and productive life.

After all, whenever we look inward, we are not looking outward.

But is that really the case?

Perhaps this statement is easier to believe if we begin by looking at negative situations first.

As the ongoing global health crisis has demonstrated, the actions of a very small number of people can have far reaching implications for people all over the world — a sort of domino effect if you will.

And this is by no means an isolated incident — much the same thing can be said of Ebola outbreaks in Africa, 911 in New York City, and even the Stock Market crash of 1987.

So, if we know for certain that negative events in one area have global consequences in other distant areas — then why do we still resist the notion that positive events (or building positive connections) would be any different?

Perhaps the real problem here is simply that we have not really been looking for them. In fact, maybe we haven’t even thought about looking for them at all.

How for example, would you assess the actions of the first person to have swung a hammer at the Berlin Wall?

Or the actions of the Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg who began her quest to raise climate change awareness when she was only a child?

Unfortunately, we seem to live in a world these days that is more intent — perhaps obsessed — with negativity than the forces of good.

Good deeds don’t sell newspapers they say. In fact, good news rarely makes it to the daily news broadcasts on television (some go as far as to refer to it as “fill” — and scathingly dismiss it as not being of real value).

In short, when did we become so jaded that we would rather hear about some movie star having a fashion meltdown than her great work in the forests of the Amazon?

Every battery in the world has a positive and a negative terminal.

Maybe we should rethink and recharge our own batteries accordingly.