👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 TREE 659: Make your us bigger

TREEpeat 56

Thinking of planet Earth and all it contains as one big team is a useful thing to do – also, it’s true – but it’s hard. Our brains are not wired to think that big. We’re much better at having an us that is people with the same
family
friends
colleagues
sports team
belief system
socioeconomic level
appearance
passport

Sometimes those types of us are important. A lot of other times those types of us keep us blind, selfish and unable to solve the problems that need solved.

So what can we do?

It’s hard, in a practical sense, to make the jump from a little us to all of humanity and the planet.

An easier but still very useful thing to do is to expand your us by one level. Can you imagine stretching your us to include your neighbours, the next department over, the people across the border, the people with a bit more or less money than you? How would that change the way you understand the world?

Grow slowly
Jeff