The Day-to-Day Lives of Everyday People

This first post describes the purpose of improving and bringing better outcomes in the day-to-day lives of everyday people. It's the ethos of this site, what my work is centered around and bringing attention to; helping people realize they each have an important part in transforming our communities and society, especially now, which can have a massive, uplifting impact.

Who we are and what we do continuously contributes to and affects society and its systems, and while we need not be conscious of or believe it, it's what makes us Everyday People and there's empowerment and agency in deepening this understanding. No matter how we look at aspects of society and these systems at play - for better or worse - they're all intertwined by people whose efforts and actions in general are constantly impacting outcomes in our lives. We see these impacts in our health, resources, environment, travels, media, communities, neighborhoods, homes (or lack thereof) and more. We see it in the makeup, consistency and contrast of our work and leisure, our public image and private reality.

These people relate and translate across the spectrum of human experience, endeavor and spirit. Facts and objective reality are challenged everywhere we look, as they track and recreate what captures our attention and holds our senses the longest. While we're contending with the barrage of information, conflicts, crises, betrayals and revelations, they're seeing our reactions, what we'll allow and how we'll respond. As the future blueprints of our civilization and human endeavor emerge, they're adapting and cultivating our place in it.

We're susceptible to identify them by their specific occupation or title along with its associated trappings, missing why they're in it and what their role is for. In essence, it's treated as quicker and easier to see others by their categories (or "bios") rather than see them defined

by their humanity and actions; the subtle and "soft" reads that connect us, suffer atrophy. Yet, if we reflect - setting aside judgements, demographics, opinions or ego - they're going about their lives and its lessons as best as they can, just like we are. Whether we like it or not they're day-to-day fixtures and never really go away: we're in this together, and when it comes down to necessity or proactive choice, they are us and we are them.

The "us versus them" duality is a paradigm that's transcended by choice and discernment: while we go about the course of our local, civic lives we are all affecting what happens, and by recognizing that when harnessed in the same direction - this is collective power, we are consciously taking charge of something greater than the sum of its parts; a larger, systemic impact. There can be enormous opportunity and influence in expanding our view beyond the constraints of our individual lives, as we're always connecting to systems and involved in relationships outside them to begin with. Our lives are interconnected by social mobility, and the more we can work in service to that, the more creative potential opens up and innovative possibilities take root.

Calling ourselves everyday people is an affirmation of our enduring part in the communities in which we live; it's a commitment to learning to stop allowing those with the notion that some are just "better than" others to have control over our lives. We have made a social contract inherent to all the systems and institutions that support and govern us. Everything we do for self-improvement and preservation, in generating and harnessing resources, is bound up in civil society with other people. In other words, relationships are permanently entangled with our own betterment, and we no longer have the luxury to deny that in reality, community is integral to thriving, individual people.

I believe people have a growing sense of the inspirational roles we can have in representing positive social change with integrity. And, we're becoming keenly aware of the need to reform systems in the process that will increase participation in that change and expand its impact. The very real ways we can recognize, document and share stories of this impact, is in the day-to-day lives of everyday people.

_________________________________

In the coming posts and associated content I will share ideas and add context that I hope you will find not only helpful and supportive, but the makings of a platform to magnify and engage with those who are doing the same.