Laws of Life.

In 1993 I moved across the country with lots of open-ended questions to be determined. It was a pretty gutsy move for my 23-year-old self. There are many stories that start with that opening, but this story is about my first teaching job. I was hired on a Friday, a detail which is usually irrelevant, but in this case, school started Monday. I had two days to figure out what to do with the enormous classroom where I would be teaching science and honors math to middle school sixth graders. There were a few things I was really good at early in life, but science and math were NOT two of them. With so much to do it only made sense to start where most other 20-somethings did in 1993. With some Mr. Sketch Smelly Markers.

?Somewhere (not the internet because no one had it yet) I read something that stuck with me: “Everything comes from somewhere, everything is going somewhere, everything is connected to everything else.” I stretched out a roll of freezer paper on the industrial blue carpet and got to work. The result was a 10-foot sign that hung in that classroom, and the ones that would follow, and is still tucked away in the principal’s office at one of my schools. I was unaware those words were pulled from The Four Laws of Ecology, outlined by ecologist Barry Commoner in his 1971 book “The Closing Circle”. I was also unaware that those principles would be the foundation of my work and life philosophy.

?Everything comes from somewhere.

Dr. Bruce D. Perry and Oprah Winfrey wrote “What Happened to you?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing. After devouring the content, I immediately created a GoFundMe Page to raise money so I could purchase the book for all of my teachers and fellow administrators to read. In our world, we are so quick to judge asking, “what’s wrong with him/her/you/them?” Perry and Winfrey explain why it is more important to ask, “what happened to you?” Our actions and behaviors are a partial product of our past experiences, our biology, and our ecosystems. We all have things in our lives we wish we could change; situations we wish we had never experienced, and depending on how we have processed or ignored those circumstances, they can show up in different ways, not always super-helpful or altogether pretty. We forget, though, when we see undesirable, confusing, or downright offensive behaviors in others, that they definitely come from somewhere.

?Do some people wake up in the morning bound and determined to be an ass? For sure. Does it just come naturally for some? Yep. Do they both stem from places of hurt, fear, neglect, abuse, trauma, or grief? Yes, they do. The ways we connect with those folks, and the ways others connect with us when WE are those folks, are shades of dark and light we don’t love to discuss. Personal responsibility for our mistakes and flaws is hard. Brene Brown has been researching vulnerability and shame for two decades, and I strongly recommend all of her work. It has definitely helped me understand that it is okay to not be okay when we are not okay.

?Everything is going somewhere.

Where are we? Where do we want to be? How do we get there? Those three questions have started more mind-mapping and plan-making sessions than any others for me. Status-quo requires some formidable systems to be in place in order to happen. It takes some work. But even when we are in a state of rest and stillness, we are still going somewhere. Our thoughts take us far away, our actions move us physically, and our energy changes constantly. We all share that.

?Where do you want to go? Who do you want to be and what will that look like for you? How will you know when you get there? These are the questions that keep us up at night. As children, we dream of the person we hope to be when we grow up, and the possibilities are without limit or regard to our actual talents and abilities. We just want it! Over time, our dreams are cut down to size and we accept what is often a very different reality. But isn’t there some part of you that still wants to go “there”?

Everything is connected to everything else.

This turns out to be the first law of Ecology. To me, it has always been a statement that we are all one. We are all just people. Beings who want to be seen, heard, understood, and loved. After appearing in at least 67 films, Kevin Bacon is claimed to fall within six degrees of every other actor. I’ve always wondered if we really got to talking to the random stranger next to us on an airplane, would we be connected by six degrees? How about by three? How closely matched to their DNA is mine? Might we share family? Did you once have Olympic ambitions, or long to be a writer, too?

The life of the woman walking miles to collect water for her family is connected to mine. We share a bond of sisterhood because we are both women working to take care of our families. So why is it so hard for the rest of the world to relate to one another?

?When we realize that the laws of ecology apply to us as people, the importance of relating to weird, nasty, nameless strangers takes shape. Most connections involve interactions, and interactions end up creating much of who we are. If that is the case, how am I connected to a boy who walks into a school and mows down 21 people? Somewhere down the line did I interact with someone in Arizona, who knew someone’s sister who had a brother in Texas, who had a relative that was a neighbor of someone who knew that person’s mother? Pretty convoluted. And between those six people, how many interactions have they had? We’re talking massive numbers so why even bother trying to pinpoint something we may or may not have in common.

?But what if those six people committed themselves to create positive interactions with the people they meet? And something they did made someone happy or gave them hope? And what if more people had a role in creating positive interactions? Might there be more positivity in the world? To make it easier to believe, flip the script and think of how easily negativity creates more negativity. Ah, now it’s easy to picture. Quick, flip the script back!

?It's so important to remember that we all came from somewhere, we are all going somewhere, and we are all connected. Your smile, eye contact, kind words, or deeds might spark something, if only in yourself. Commit to having conversations about how crucial it is that our everyday interactions connect us positively to everyone else…..on the daily.