week 1 | connection to humanity | give blood

On my best days, I am acutely aware of my connection to the universe, and especially my connection to all of humanity. Having worked in social services for all of my adult life, I have worked with, and connected with people from nearly every walk of life you can imagine. It has been humbling and inspirational.

But something changed for me after my near-death experience two years ago, and I found myself feeling really disconnected and eventually depressed. Two years later, I am thankfully not depressed anymore, but I am still missing the deep sense of connection that I used to have. This has always been something that has played an important role in my life... in who I am when I wake up in the morning. I need it back. So, the first theme I'm choosing is to connect to humanity.

I'm planning to have a mantra and an action for each week. So here goes the action. If you've ever had a blood transfusion, you might understand how strange it feels to know that someone else's blood is coursing through your veins. It's really, really weird. But once you get over the strangeness of that idea, you realize that someone else, or three someone elses, just saved your life. It's a beautiful, very human thing. And I don't think you can be more connected to someone than to have your blood pumping through their veins, so this week's action is to give blood. To find out where to do it, go here or here. (For Chicago residents, I have always had a great experience giving blood at the 2nd link, Lifesource.) If you have O+ blood, you are a universal donor, meaning that anyone can use your blood, so, please keep going every 2 months.

Let me know how the first week goes, and I'll report in next week when I introduce the next intention.

Mantra: Be connected. (Isn't that a WTTW slogan? Unintentional.)
Action: Give blood.