Our experiences are full of lessons and we are at liberty to choose how we utilise them. Learning from them when the time is right, book marking them for future reference, or perhaps we ignore some of them, because not every lessons carries a teaching of relevance as there is much noise in the world around us.

Over the last few few weeks I have been re-examining my relationship and use of specific social media platforms in order to get the platforms to work more closely to what I use them for rather than me working for the platform through the attention I feed into the algorithm. There is a lesson in itself here with regards to focusing our attention using intentional choice, but it’s not what I am seeking to explore today and may return to it at a later stage.

The act that I would like to draw attention to in this pieces of writing is the act of reciprocity.

Should we call reciprocity an act, a behaviour, a mindset, a philosophy, an act, or a way of life? I battled to put it into one of these framings as I made my way through writing these words and might return to it later. For the moment I have decided to describe reciprocity as an act because it involves an “exchange” with others for mutual benefit.

In trying to make sense of the world and thinking through how we might contribute to change the future for the better to address some of the challenges we face as humanity, I sometimes turn to the word “help”. In many interactions when people try to make a difference they ask the the question “how can I help?”. I myself have used this question in a variety of situations and only in reflecting on the word help have I begun to realise that it is patronising. “How can I help” is a show of kindness, of generosity, of concern, of care. However it suggests a one way exchange between you and the entity that you are leading assistance to.

Richard Bartlett (@RichDeibels on Twitter) influenced some of my thinking with this thread he shared, you can read it here. My biggest take away from reading his thoughts was this “how can we help one another?” The shift is subtle but the meaning is quite remarkable as it encourages us to see helping in a mutual light rather than just a one way exchange.

This lead me to link it to acts of reciprocity and how we could use reciprocity to between understand helping as a mutual exchange rather than one directional.

There are lessons that we can learn from the principles outlined in the Honourable Harvest in relation to this.

• Know the ways of the ones who take care of you, so that you may take care of them.
• Introduce yourself. Be accountable as the one who comes asking for life.
• Ask permission before taking. Abide by the answer.
• Never take the first. Never take the last.
• Take only what you need.
• Take only that which is given.
• Never take more than half. Leave some for others.
• Harvest in a way that minimizes harm.
• Use it respectfully. Never waste what you have taken.
• Share.
• Give thanks for what you have been given.
• Give a gift, in reciprocity for what you have taken.
• Sustain the ones who sustain you and the earth will last forever.

If this peaked your interest, you can read Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book - Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants

“How can we help one another” is a powerful question as it recognises how interconnected the world truly is. It also allows us to explore how we can create win-win environments for the betterment of the whole and not just the individual. Riding the rising tide together to build a future we can all be proud of.