Be a Good Neighbor

    Many years ago, I reached into my fruit bowl and pulled out a banana. I held it up and took a good look at that banana. I had worked for that banana. I had paid for that banana with my own money. How wonderful it was to be so self-sufficient, to have provided myself with that banana by the sweat of my own brow. I accomplished it on my own; I did it all by myself.

    We take pride in the thought, "I did it all by myself." We all live under the false assumption that we should be or can be independent. Have you ever really thought that through? The hard truth is, you have never achieved anything on your own. You have never accomplished one single thing during your entire life on your own.

    I had worked for the money to pay for that banana at a company that employed about 60 people. Without the concerted efforts of those other 59 people, that company wouldn't exist, and I wouldn't have a job there. I drove to the store in a car that took the efforts of 106,000 people to build. The gasoline used to move the vehicle required the efforts of another 7,000 people to reach the gas station. The supermarket chain where I bought the banana employed 30,000 people. The distributor who supplied the bananas to that supermarket needed 20,000 people to function. The plantation that grew the banana, sorted and packaged it for shipping, employed 27,100 people.

    So it was not only me who put that banana in my hand while I sat at my kitchen table. It took the efforts of 190,159 people, which is the population of a city the size of Baltimore, Maryland, to allow me the opportunity to reach into my fruit bowl and pull out a banana. Thank all of you for that banana; it was a good banana.

    Take a look around you. Everything you see is only possible through the coordinated, purposeful efforts of millions of people just like you. Take the time this New Year to remove the tags and reflect on the people around you. When you see someone struggling, reach out to them and lend a helping hand, because you achieve nothing “on your own". We are all in this together, and nobody gets out of here alive.