UNITY

Although it seems a shame that it would take something as horrific as the Twin Tower tragedy or Hurricane Katrina to cause so many of our citizens to display loyalty and a united front, it seems that many of us require something of severity slap us into unity.

Our lack of unity and fellowship is all too evident in so many facets of our lives. Maybe it begins when we are young and are trained to display competitiveness and division. When I was in grade school in my hometown, we had the North Side Grade School and the South Side Grade school. We often competed against those nasty South Siders, but were never brought together or exposed to them in a non-competitive or complementary manner. I wonder, had we also been able to have the competitiveness offset with some sort of side by side, shoulder to shoulder community effort, or even to sing Christmas carols, how much differently might we have related to one another once we reached the same high school. I admit that, to me, the South Siders were always the South Siders, even after two years of junior high and four years of high school together. They were standoffish and had superior attitudes. Or so it seemed to us North Siders.

We have all these divisions. We are a world of fences, both tangible and intangible. Neighbors, schools, towns, states, countries.

The fences exist even in the work place. I have experienced it in every one of the many jobs that I've had. There's the very obvious hostility between factory personnel and the office force. And, within the office environment, there's the departmental barriers. There's usually an "us and them" mentality that interferes with the unity of the company. The unity of the company should be of foremost concern, because, as with a country, unity reflects strength. The strength of a company insures its survival, which insures the continued employment of its personnel.

We all have to care about and respect one another. Granted, departments have to be concerned primarily with their own functions. But, all departments are vital to a company's well being. All employees are vital. We have to be interested in and respectful of all the parts of the body that make up our company.

We can't draw lines and resist assistance to another soul because they aren't in our department or country or state or school. Regretfully, I witness these lines and resistence in our company. And, relatively speaking, it is a very small company. Most of us actually know one another. But many of us are unwilling to make an extra effort that is easily within our reach to help someone because they aren't in "our" department. Even now.

Haven't we learned anything from the tragedy of the Twin Towers and Katrina?

Learn more about this author, A. Jill Gaebel.
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