Declare Your Interdependence!
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This year marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the original Declaration of Independence. It is an auspicious moment to update this document to best suit the needs of this moment. At a time of division, loneliness, and alienation, the 2026 Declaration must focus on what we share and how deeply we are interconnected. It must inspire us to come together, so that we can mend our fractured world. Now is the perfect time to declare our interdependence.
The many challenges we face today are not just problems of politics or policy; they are problems of perspective. From childhood Americans are encouraged to be “rugged individuals,” the sort of people who are self-reliant and independent, who pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, who rise, and fall, by our own initiative. In the United States, we imagine happiness as if it were an apple pie with a limited number of slices, so you had better get yours while you can. We say “there is no I in team,” but our heroes are rarely team-players. We like our heroes to bet big on themselves and bring down the house. And then we celebrate the ideal of the self-made person so deeply it has us blind to the ties that bind us together.
Declaring interdependence means three things
First, it means recognizing and celebrating the many ways our lives are bound. Think of all the people who make your life possible. Every day we speak languages we did not invent, walk on paths we did not pave, mostly eat food we did not grow, write on devices we did not build, and connect over an internet most of us did not create. We are who we are because of our own efforts as well as the efforts of our ancestors, our families, our mentors, our teachers, our communities, and our friends. There is no me and no you without the earth that is our home and our common ground. There is no me and no you without the plants we eat, the cooling rains that become the rivers and lakes we drink, the trees that purify the air we breathe, the bacteria that colonize our bellies and digest our food for us, or the antibodies that fight off disease and cancer. And there is no me and no you without us.
Second, it means recognizing the need to learn to work together if we want to be happy. Happiness is not a zero-sum game. If it is an apple pie, it is so big that everyone can get a slice. If you suffer less, I will suffer less, for you will be less likely to inflict your suffering on me. And if we suffer less, all of us suffer less, for we will be less likely to inflict our suffering on the world. All of us benefit when there is less suffering, and more joy, in the world.
Third, it means building communities where we can support each other and learn to practice what I call “mindful democracy” together.
Mindful Democracy
“Democracy” is a word many people use, but few people truly understand. Today we tend to mistake democracy for the part we play on election days to contribute to the battle between political parties for power, influence, and money. But that’s not true democracy. True democracy is mindful democracy: in my new book On Mindful Democracy: A Declaration of Interdependence to Mend a Fractured World I define it as “a communal practice of working together to care for ourselves, each other, and for the life we share.” When we practice democracy together, we aim to reduce the amount of suffering in the world and to ensure that everyone is supported, safe, and has what they need to live a good life as they choose to define it. True democracy begins when we realize that we need each other to be happy.
I call this “mindful democracy” because democracy does not work without mindfulness. Mindfulness is a practice of coming home to the present moment. We come home by calling our wandering minds back to the here and now, where they belong. Mindfulness trains us to focus on what matters, and to see the whole picture. Mindfulness helps us to see past the narrow vision of separate, isolated selves locked in a political war, revealing all that we share. Every time we stand up for what we believe in, we stand on common ground.
Mindful democracy is not something that happens only on election days. It is an everyday practice. The way we move, the way we speak, the way we show up for one another—these are not rehearsals for democracy; they are democracy. Anytime we show up for someone else to care for them and for the life we share, with an open heart while remembering that we stand on common ground, we are practicing democracy.
So, let’s begin. Not perfectly, not all at once, but with heart and with hope, in whatever way we are able.
The good news is that we don’t have to do it alone.
