We are a non-profit organization Humanity Integrated that is comprised of people who find themselves in the most interesting yet trying times of human evolution – the time of global crisis, which is the first stage of a profound change.
![The Happiest People Have Vibrant Social Networks & Work Hard to Cultivate Relationships with Other People [Quote Poster]](https://mutualresponsibility.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/happiness-quote_caroline-adams-miller.png)
The happiest people have vibrant social networks; they work hard at cultivating relationships with other people. So it’s the togetherness, the bringing people together that brings people the most joy.
–Caroline Adams Miller
For more about contagious laughter, see:
Social networks exhibit a collective intelligence not available to each individual member.
–Dr. Nicholas Christakis
The most astounding fact [about the universe] is the knowledge that the atoms that comprise life on Earth, the atoms that make up the human body, are traceable to the crucibles that cooked light elements into heavy elements in their core under extreme temperatures and pressures.
These stars, the high mass ones among them, went unstable in their later years. They collapsed and then exploded, scattering their enriched guts across the galaxy—guts made of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and all the fundamental ingredients of life itself.
These ingredients become part of gas clouds that condense, collapse, form the next generation of solar systems, stars with orbiting planets, and those planets now have the ingredients for life itself, so that when I look up at the night sky and I know that yes, we are part of this universe, we are in this universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the universe is in us.
When I reflect on that fact, I look up, many people feel small because they’re small and the Universe is big, but I feel big, because my atoms came from those stars.
There’s a level of connectivity. That’s really what you want in life. You want to feel connected. You want to feel relevant. You want to feel like you are a participant in the goings on of activities and events around you. That’s precisely what we are just by being alive.
— Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson
![David Bowden - The Inner Net [Poem]](https://mutualresponsibility.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/the-inner-net_david-bowden_750x260.png)
The Inner Net – David Bowden
Woven into each and everyone of us there is
an inner net
We connect
To each other
Thread to Thread
Cell to Cell
Heart to Heart
When formed correctly the net forms community
And we catch boat loads of life
We all yearn to be hewn[1] in this collection
For it is the human connection
It’s the reason why we have eyes, tongues, and lips
So we can be intertwined together as we see, speak and kiss
It’s the reason why we have right and left hands
So when my right reaches your left
Pinkies, rings, middles, pointers, and thumbs interconnect
In the loom of the human thread
But we have become disconnected
By nations and nationalities
Language and legalities
Wars and quarantines
Prejudices and bigotry [2]
The net of humanity
Has been severed severely
As we cut ourselves off
In the pursuit of individuality
And in the midst of this shrinking world sensation
Many are placing the blame on
Technology
As we burrow into browsers
Unplug by plugging in for hours
Miss blue skies while working in the cloud
Laugh out loud without laughing out loud
Humanity seems to be disconnecting
At the one point in history when it is the most connected
But just as to the good we are not entirely compliant [3]
Nor entirely resistant
Neither is this tool entirely consistent
For the problems of our world used to be too big and too distant
To connect to and know of its widespread existence
But now our world is too small and too close for us not to make a difference
We can now connect
Crowds around a cause
The ignorant to knowledge
The isolated to college
Orphans to their fathers
Donors to non-profits
And injustices to those who can stop it
We can now see
Our newborn nephew
A revolution breakthrough
The troops as they withdrew
Uncensored world news
And what is and isn’t untrue
We can now hear
Cries from Thailand
Shouts from Somalia
And can shove our arms, elbow-deep,
Through our screens, reach out,
And touch them
But so often
We use this tool to ignore them
And the rest of those humans
For just as fire can be used for warmth or destruction
We misuse url’s, firewalling off the world with distractions
We search daily, but find nothing
Add friends, but lose community
Look for love but get pornography
Try to discover ourselves, but lose our identity
And though this entity is filled with both
Healing and brokenness
Guilt and innocence
Some of what’s Godly
And some of what’s Devilish
That does not detract from its significance
When it comes down to it
The true nature of this new age unit
Is in how we use it
Woven into each and everyone of us there is an inner net
And I pray we may stitch our world back together
As we knit, patch, and connect
[1] hewn: shaped
[2] bigotry: intolerence
[3] compliant: obeying
Psychologists have scientifically proven that one of the greatest contributing factors to overall happiness in your life is how much gratitude you show.
In this experiment put on by Soul Pancake, subjects who wrote a letter of gratitude, thinking of someone that influenced them the most, saw a rise in happiness of 2-4%.
However, for subjects who picked up the phone and personally expressed their gratitude to the person that influenced them the most in their life, there were happiness increases of 4-19%, showing that expressing your gratitude will make you a happier person.
This happiness experiment in gratitude is based on the following study:
Martin E. P. Seligman, Tracy A. Steen & Christopher Peterson, “Positive Psychology Progress: Empirical Validation of Interventions.”
