Everything is connected

My story, my values, my hope.

On the 1st of April 2016, I gave my boss my resignation letter. I remember my conviction that day, that no matter how valuable my contribution was to the office, my own values were no longer aligned.

I loved my job, I was good at my job, and I was successful at my job. But at some point, my need for adventure and fulfilment was more important.

In Maslow's hierarchy of Needs, friendship and self-actualisation sit on top of the Basic Needs layer (food, shelter, water).

My 'Self' then, had enough money and social security to "cash in" stability for self-realisation.

So off I went on my heroine journey to find creativity, expression, beauty, love, and joy.

As I am now Self-Employed, I realise how similar my job is today to what I used to do at the company I worked for (I had many hats back then too!), except this time I work for myself.

I don't have a paycheck at the end of each month, I don't have security and stability the way I used to have, my job is to create that for myself.

But is stability and security something we can create alone?

Well, it's not.

As a Kibbutz girl (born and bred) I will always have a strong sense of self, an identity, intertwined with the extended family of my Kibbutz roots.

I was raised on the romantic values of collaboration and belonging, in a lot of ways it is the ground of my whole being.

The social ideals of the Kibbutz didn't stand the test of time because the needs of the individual for self-actualization were not a priority.

When it comes to capitalistic ideals, we now see the social systems that were meant to provide us with basic security failing as they turn away from the individual toward the powerful driven by greed.

As a society, our values no longer align with those at the top because our basic needs are not being met (think "cost of living").

The way I see it, it's time to create new systems that can sustain new social structures to provide the individual with their needs on all levels (basic, psychological, and self-fulfilment).

I don't have solutions, but for me, it starts with the personal realisation that we are a part of a natural echo system that is nonlinear as well as mysterious.