(This article responds to comments from the previous article.)

Self-sufficiency is a worthwhile tool, but not exactly what we  think it is. In some things, it is helpful and can move us forward, but in others, it can be harmful and move us backward. While it is an ideal that can provide some benefits, the axiom is true – no man (person) is an island. In the same way, no family can be an island. We live in a world where we strive to join together and cooperate with each other. Almost everything we have in our lives is a result of both family member and non-family member cooperation to build our society, our community, our nation, or our world. To say that the opposite is good – self-sufficiency – the more the better – and reliance on others is a bad thing that we need to get away from is to not acknowledge that all things in life have come from cooperation between one person and another. Cooperation is the working with and relying on others to contribute what they can to a task.

If we thought we were islands unto ourselves, even on farms, first we would have to acknowledge that our tractors, vehicles and tools were made by other people who joined together to make them, our fuel was refined by other people cooperating, our seeds and animals may have come from cooperating individuals, our education is provided by other cooperating people, our understanding of math, science, the world, how things work, how things can be fixed have been provided by cooperation with other people, our medical needs are provided by other people who joined together, law enforcement, the task of fire response, and our religious and spiritual understanding came from people who have been cooperating to develop them. Books, machines, our dwellings, our learning, our …. everything comes from cooperation amongst family or non-family people. Show me anything that has progressed humankind further and I’ll show you where cooperation among people coming together to form groups to accomplish tasks was a part of that. So, self-sufficiency is only one “tool” and not a “savior” of sorts.

Even to send a message that the people in government are not trustworthy – which is why many say self-sufficiency is necessary – is to deny the fact that many, many people go into public service with the belief in their hearts that they can help or they can try to make a difference. In general, these are not shallow people, but people like you and I who see a need, see a potential avenue to help, and then want to try to help. How many times have any of us thought, “I know I could do a better job than that if I was in that job”?  Well, they are the ones who try to do that ‘better job’.  This belief in our hearts doesn’t just disappear the 1st day in office. In general, they try hard to hold onto that belief and ideal as they maneuver through the mine fields of all the people pulling on them. Psychically, I can see cooperation among many people who are elected, in order to try to do some good. I can see decent people, like us, that try to do what they believe can help. Not everyone succeeds, but enough people, hold onto their hope to help – with their efforts sometimes hidden to public scrutiny – in order to say that it is not true that “government is not to be trusted”, because “government” is just people – trying. Psychically, I don’t see a lot of prayers being said for them to maneuver through their mine fields full of challenges and temptations. If any group of people needs our supportive prayers, these people could certainly benefit from our prayers to help support their resolve to serve and to strengthen the courage of their convictions. But, how many people pray for those they look down upon and disdain – elected officials?  There are very few prayers coming from the people who criticize and condemn them.

I won’t discuss whether there are good or bad people involved in government service, because there are good and bad people involved in every aspect of life. There is even good and bad – both – in every single individual on this planet. In addition, the beneficial things in life that have helped further societies’ helpful development and evolution have come with ever greater cooperation among people as part of the tools bringing forth that development and evolution.

No “blanket” view or “stereotypical” view or “black and white” view or “condemning” view is going to offer the truth of the situation or with people. These views are going to be very easy and popular to take on, though. Yet, seeing both sides, or a deeper and balanced view takes willingness to do just that, and then effort and change. We tend to not want to see the truth of other people – the humanness within all people – because we sometimes want to vent our frustration and find easy targets of blame – like political figures. But, the truth is nowhere around when we base our beliefs on seeing people of one group or one position or one anything as being who is to blame, and therefore not worthy of prayers that help them. Nor is the truth around when we decide that only one way of living is worthwhile.

Life is cooperation, as much as anything else. The whole world is at our level of development and evolution because of cooperation throughout the ages, and the whole human race knows that better things can happen and more people can be helped when cooperation happens. If you’re wondering if you’ve ever been helped, because you couldn’t do something by yourself, I would ask anyone who reads this, were you helped to be born? Were you helped by others to grow up as a baby, adolescent, child, teenager and as an adult? Were you only helped by your family? or child care personnel? or teachers? or friends? Police? shopkeepers? barbers? elected officials? service people? Ministers? Priests? Doctors? Firemen?  Bus drivers?  Engineers?  Mechanics?  Architects?  Can you count how many people have helped you in some way, large or small, directly and indirectly, throughout your entire life? With all that help, can we really say ‘Self-sufficiency” is what we think it is?  or isolate any effort or group to condemn?

Right now, there are 7 billion people cooperating on this planet in the task of being alive together trying to live a life while still trying to support the freewill of every soul. Even with the pain and suffering being inflicted by some – very few, now, want to ever again cooperate to bring the taking away of freewill based on who a person is or was born being. We’re working to find ways to cooperate with accepting living on this planet while building lives we believe are better. 7 billion souls believe it’s worth the effort to try to be on the planet right now.  Some of that effort finds that relying only on ourselves – self-sufficiency – does indeed help in some areas of our lives – but that self-sufficiency alone – could never be the only answer.  The paradox is we can only have self-sufficiency within the paradigm of cooperation and joining with others.

We have been designed by God to need one another and for a purpose.  All of this is designed to be part of the path back to the awareness and cooperation within our relationship with God.

For those of us who seek to contribute something to the human race, or “to help make this world of people a better place when we leave it than when we came in,” we also try to find ways to cooperate with our spiritual essence in order to find ways to add something worthwhile to this world.

Ultimately, when we learn how important it is to cooperate in all our relationships, because we are not islands at any level, we may then learn how important it is to cooperate with God inside the relationship we have with God, Him/Herself directly. In learning how to do this, we can find that cooperating with humankind is, in fact, cooperating with God. Cooperating with God is, in fact, cooperating with humankind – whether it’s done with one person, a hundred, or 7 billion.

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“Go deeper.  Look deeper.  Examine deeper.  The deeper we pursue, the more truth we discover.” (The Rainbow Cards, ©, 2015, Jodie Senkyrik)