We Are All on the Same Team

It Just Takes Some Self-Awareness to Play Well

We might stomp on each other’s toes sometimes, but as incompatible as we sometimes appear to be, human beings are fundamentally social creatures.

The human reality is that we need each other.

We need the constant stimulus of encouragement and challenge that other people naturally provide. If we are willing to tackle our differences head-on and focus on our collective betterment, this stimulus can ultimately bring us closer together.

The Challenge of Self-Awareness and Cooperation

That’s the ultimate challenge, isn’t it? To work on ourselves while dealing with constant encroachment on “our space,” making our way through crowded streets, constantly jolted by the people in our vicinity.

We must use self-awareness to move and shift accordingly, because too many collisions can cause us to harden, or even stop moving. For better or for worse, life is very much a crowded street at rush hour, with multiple lanes closed down and under construction. It all boils down to the fact that we will always be walking through one another’s space.

So, collisions are not merely unfortunate incidents; they are inevitable. Our best option is to adapt, and to take the lessons that come with the bumps with as much grace as possible.

Hopefully, we will move on with a bit more individual self-awareness and collective knowledge about our reactive nature. 

The more we evolve in this direction, the better we can deal with the unavoidable reality of others’ constant intrusion on our space. In addition, we can build more self-awareness about how we do the exact same thing to other people.

Ultimately, we act as supportive mirrors for each other. There’s much to be gained by lowering our guard. We gain a lot when we allow others to show us our softest and most vulnerable spots—and let them support us in those places. This is how we strengthen.

In the end, we are all struggling to make our way through a busy street. We are simultaneously bumping along. We are all trying to make it safely somewhere.

If we keep in mind this inescapable truth, then perhaps we can find it in ourselves to reach out and help steady the next person we accidentally bump into. We can look into their eyes in acknowledgment as we make sure they did not sustain significant injury from our clumsy trekking before we both move along our way.

We are all playing the same team-less game.

That’s a beautiful thing to realize. Cultivating our individual sense of self-awareness helps us see that we are all on the same team.

At Producers Market, we are all about cooperation, trust, and connection. We are all about seeing ourselves on the same team, along all parts of the supply chain. 

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