Well Served by Our Values: Recalling 911, with Aloha
Where did your thoughts go as 911 was commemorated today, and “Never forget” themes dominated the airwaves?
In recent years, I have usually thought about the non-competitiveness of Kūlia i ka nu‘u, as I had written about 911 within that context for its chapter in Managing with Aloha, where we rebuild to recover in a way that supports and strengthens our community as a whole. It certainly would’ve been natural and even necessary to think in those terms again, as several communities rebuild and recover this hurricane season; yours may be one of them.
This year, within the throes of our Lōkahi immersion, I found myself thinking about options, and about all the ways that a natural disaster or catastrophic event will bring us together. There are options in teamwork that are directly due to the sense of ownership and willing responsibility we bring to it, as individuals.
I like to think of it as our heart’s persuasion, certainly, for our empathy and compassion rises to the surface (to our ‘alo’ presence) so easily, and we feel it ‘in our veins.’ Those are the warm and fuzzies and ‘ha’ guarantees of Aloha.
“People will, by nature, return to their good.”
—The Managing with Aloha belief connected to our mana‘o that “Our values, by merit of our human nature, are inherently good; there are no ‘bad’ values.”
However, I also like thinking about how our emotional intelligence will kick in, guiding us and moving us to act with kindness, consideration, and neighborliness. Those are our natural entry points; being ‘nice’ is a Lōkahi trigger and lever.
Being nice triggers a connection that others are instantly willing to accept from you, one human being to another. When nice is your m.o. and you are consistent about it, those who will team up with you don’t feel they must accept you ‘with a grain of salt’ or otherwise pause to question your motives before they engage with you.
We came together quickly after 911, to do the Lōkahi co-working of cooperation, collaboration and consensus reaching, yet somehow, we allowed identity politics, racial divides, and economic strife to separate us, and to break the Aloha identities which had once bound us together in Lōkahi’s unity and harmony.
We shouldn’t need disaster after disaster to remind us who we really are. Let’s just get better at being those human beings we’re meant to be.
“Lōkahi is the value of harmony and unity.
People who work together can achieve more.”
Find a Way by Thomas Hawk on Flickr
Invoke Lōkahi for Harmony and Unity
Ninth in Series Two on Managing with Aloha | By Rosa Say
