You’ve heard that ‘seeing is believing,’ right? The truth is that ‘believing is seeing.’

What you believe becomes the lens through which you view everything.

What do you believe? Let’s start with the folks around you, your family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, the community, your country. Are they all ‘others’ to you? How about people who live on the other side of the world? The other side of the political spectrum? The other skin colors? The other religions?

The more we focus on ‘otherness’ the less we understand about who we really are as individuals. Yes, we have separate physical bodies, but we are all one. We are all one big organism called ‘humanity’ on Earth.

Even the teachings about how we are all connected are trying to explain a concept that goes deeper than that. We Are All One. There really is no separation.

If you’ve heard anything about new science, quantum physics, you’ve probably heard that science understands that particles that seem to be discrete and individual somehow seem to know what other particles are doing without a connection network to transmit that information. (Or, at least, a connection that we can describe and understand at this time!) But if the particles (individuals) are all a part of one organism (consciousness) then maybe they don’t need a communication network. They just ‘know’ what is known elsewhere.

Now, for humans, this can get trickier because we like to think that we are unique individuals and we LOVE the word ‘mine’! From the time we first figure out what that word means, as toddlers, we use it to lay claim to what we perceive is ours, without regard to what anyone else wants. Just ask a toddler to care that you want to play with that toy that they’ve declared is ‘mine’ and see how far you get!

Grownups can evolve beyond this narrow vision of ‘mine’ into ‘ours,’ if they try. We learned to share in kindergarten, we practiced being a sibling or a couple or a family member or a community and we learned about the concept of ‘for the good of all.’ Not everyone, though, has embraced that concept.

In the midst of an election in a democracy, like the US, we hear all sorts of rhetoric and, sadly, lies. Everyone running for office claims to have the solutions for every problem. We often hear fear-mongering to get you all riled up about holding onto what you claim is ‘mine’ vs sharing with others, the concept of ‘ours.’ To back up these claims there are often statistics or stories that are concocted without a basis in fact.

The little toddler inside each voter reacts with that old idea of ‘mine’ and can be blindly led down a path that causes them to vote against their own best interest because they are so focused on ‘others’ trying to take what is ‘mine’ that they forget to analyze, calculate, do the research and educate themselves.

Start with We Are All One. Everything really is connected, so connected, in fact, that it is One. We can share. Just as we learned in kindergarten, it is okay to take turns, to share, to participate together so that everyone is taken care of.

Not only do we have privileges as human beings on Earth at this time, we also have responsibilities to each other and to the Earth. In a democracy, citizenship includes being educated and caring about others who share this democracy with you. As Earthlings, we share the planet with many others and so we have a responsibility to care for and about the Earth.

Get out the glass cleaner and clean off the lens through which you are looking at the world. Start with We Are All One!