Connected

Recently I've been going through one of my bouts of feeling pretty ineffective - basically useless.  Unemployment can do that to you, especially when you don't have your spiritual ducks in row.
Now, I know the standard response to such a feeling is "get off the pity pot" or "get your ass to a meeting" or something like that.  That advice can be useful, but it also helps (me, at least) to try to look objectively at the situation and see just how much of the problem is purely in my head.  (I almost wrote "is real as opposed to in my head" but, as any alkie knows, a problem in your head can be a very, very real problem.)  After looking over the situation I may come up with a way to work on it or I may decide it isn't that much of a problem after all.

Now, my feeling ineffective turns out to be a mixed bag.  I am unemployed, so one of my primary ways of contributing to the world is cut off.  However, on looking over the situation, I see that I undervalue some of my other ways of making a contribution to humanity (like this blog, for example).

Last month I attended an eye-opening lecture by Nicholas Christakis who, along with James H. Fowler, has written Connected,  The Surprising Power of Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives --How Your Friends' Friends Affect Everything You Feel, Think, and Do.  Christakis and Fowler have shown how we are shaped by our social networks (of all kinds, including the online ones that get so much attention).  We tend to put on weight if our friends put on weight or even if our friends' friends, whom we may have never met, put on weight.  The same goes for smoking or, of course, for getting sober.  Our social network is much more effective at changing our moods or attitudes than material circumstances.  An increase of $10,000 of income per year yields only a 2% increased chance for happiness, while having a happy friend gives a 15% chance and a happy person you may have never met, but to whom you are indirectly tied gives a 6-10% chance of greater happiness.

You can see where I am going here.  This relates directly to my interpretation of Fr. Ed Dowling's concept of a Glad Gethsemane.  It also relates to how we are doing 12th Step work just by attending meetings.  And it has a lot to do with why I do this blog.

This all reminds me of my favorite quote from Robert F. Kennedy:

Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope... and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.