There is a school of thought called Vedanta that I learned about from reading Alan Watts. It holds that all is "oneness" or "connectedness" and that the lines

There is a school of thought called Vedanta that I learned about from reading Alan Watts. It holds that all is "oneness" or "connectedness" and that the lines that appear to separate ourselves from each other are merely illusions and that helping yourself is helping others and helping others is helping yourself. At first read, this sounded like hippy dippy nonsense to me. But then I started seeing "practical" manifestations of this in my life over and over again. For example, I did a bunch of Pro Bono web development for a non-profit because I liked the non-profit. Besides the good feeling I got from helping a worthy charity and the thanks and friendships I gained from the people who worked there, I also ended up getting three web consulting gigs. I gave a friend some money to start a creative project and their level of happiness has increased. And that happiness level is contagious and I find myself feeling some of that happiness spill over onto me whenever I hang out with them. And when I started eating right, exercising, and following my goals and dreams, I was happier and that happiness spilled over to all around me. And as I became more successful, it opened up economic opportunities for those around me to take part in my business and to partner with. And it inspired those around me to follow their dreams. And that's spilling over to the people around those who were helped by me in an outward circle. In a very grounded way, I'm really starting to believe there is something to this connectedness idea.