Have you ever heard of the six degrees of separation? It is a theory that states every person in the world is only six steps or six introductions away from every other person on the planet, despite race, social status or geographic location.
It’s a Small World After All
The theory begins like this; you are only one degree away from everyone you personally know, such as your family and friends. You are two degrees away from everyone they know and so on and so on. As far-fetched as this may sound, time and time again, experiments and studies on this theory have proved it to be amazingly accurate.
According to The Guardian.co.uk, a team of researchers at Microsoft conducted a study in June of 2006 on 30 billion electronic conversations among 180 million people using Microsoft Messenger. If two people had sent one another a message, they were considered acquaintances. The average number of users needed to connect one person to another totally random person out of 180 million users was approximately 6.6. The data showed that 78 percent of the pairs could be connected in seven steps or less.
ABC news covered a similar study conducted by Columbia University professor, Duncan Watts. The Small World Project was an experiment in which each participant was assigned a random target. The chain would start by the participant e-mailing someone they knew. That person would be asked to continue the chain by e-mailing someone else they knew, in hopes of eventually having the e-mail reach a personal acquaintance of the target. There were 60,000 participants from 170 different countries around the world. A total of eighteen people were chosen as the random targets. Again, the average number of links between the participant and the target in all the chains which were completed turned out to be six.
Exploring Your Relationships
The six degrees of separation shows just how closely we are all connected as human beings. Most of us are not even consciously aware that our actions can actually have an effect on someone else in another part of the world. Human relationships have a profound impact on who we are, however, there are many other relationships that affect this experience called life.
According to "The Vortex, Where Law of Attraction Assembles All Cooperative Relationships", by Abraham-Hicks, everything you know, everything you perceive or notice is because of your relationship with something else.
Once you are born, the relationship between you and your parents starts to shape how you perceive the world around you. From this one relationship, you have your first experiences with love, companionship, security, fear, joy, anger, sadness, excitement, jealousy and a slew of other emotions. Your parents help shape your beliefs and influence how you feel and react to the situations around you.
For example, if your mother loves dogs and reacts with excitement and enthusiasm whenever she sees one, you, as a young child are likely to have a similar reaction. On the other hand, if your mother dislikes dogs and reacts with fear, you will also fear the animal at first. However, as you grow and develope other relationships, a friend or neighbor could introduce a different perspective on this animal, one of love and joy. Your relationship with the dog could help shape a love for all animals, leading to an appreciation of the natural world and eventually, a passion for environmental awareness.
Discovering Who You Really Are
Every relationship that occurs throughout our lives, good or bad, is an opportunity for experience and growth. A relationship with one thing creates a comparative experience with something else. Through our relationships, we experience contrast, which helps us discover who we really are.
Relationships are the connections between everything that exists and without relationships, nothing could exist. You are connected, in some way, to everyone and everything on this planet and beyond; to everything in the universe. The most important relationship you have right now is between you and your inner being, or your spiritual self. Once you learn to appreciate and nurture this relationship, you will begin to experience more joy in all other relationships.
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