By Labor Day weekend, the declining light has begun to bring some cool, dewy mornings mixed with the lingering heat of summer. The woods hum with the sound of insects calling and seeking mates and large butterflies, ranging in color from yellow, orange and brown to black and metallic blue, are common on flowers. Later crops are appearing at the market, including the first sweet apples and grapes. After the hubbub and bustle of the hot summer days, the coming fall brings a quiet, peaceful feeling to the woods and fields. The plant and animal lives born and raised in the spring and summer are maturing while the leaves on Black Walnut and Box Elder trees are turning yellow and falling, returning fertility to the soil below them as part of the composting of the approaching dark, cold seasons of fall and winter.

In the abundance of the luscious late summer crops, we repeat our annual trek to an orchard an hour north of us to harvest Concord grapes to make a mildly sweet, robustly fruity wine. The tradition began almost a decade ago when my wife wanted to make a sweet wine like her Grandmother had made for her and her family years before. For years, we would travel with my dear Mother-in-law to the beautiful orchard where pink, plate-sized Hibiscus flowers greet us at the gate and rows of trees heavy with bright red apples stand alongside rows of vines filled with blackish-blue bunches of sweet grapes under a deep blue sky. Gathering the grapes ourselves amongst the rows on a day filled with natural beauty and anticipation of turning the grapes into wine, the event always marked the fullness of our lives in all ways.

Though my mother-in-law passed a couple of years ago, much to our great loss, we continue the tradition and bask in both the day and the memory of years of celebration. After gathering about eighty pounds of ripe, richly colored grapes, we return home and enjoy our good fortune and our labor in this celebration of life. Through many years of trials and challenges, my wife and I have been fortunate to have our relationship strengthen our lives and make many things possible that were impossible for me before I met my wife. Because our relationship works, my life works; in my personal journey, my wife’s presence has made many things possible that were impossible before.

“I give others the gift of my own life working” – Sanaya Roman

Source for Sensitive People begins with this affirmation as the starting point of empowerment. In thinking about the meaning of this, I reflect on times both my life and the lives of others not working.

For years, I volunteered in the struggle for peace and justice in the larger world. In addition to meeting idealistic, self-sacrificing activists, during my journey I saw that some use the problems of the outside world as a way to distract us from our own failings.

For several years, I was in men’s self-help groups where we discussed our problems as men and how we could improve ourselves. At the start of one meeting, a man talked about how awful a powerful politician was and how the politician’s policies should be strongly oppose. His focus delayed discussing our personal lives.

It soon emerged that the man, who had cheated on his wife in the past, was cheating again. The circle of friends around him and his wife were enraged at him while he seemed unable to face how much his infidelity had hurt the woman he loved.

As our men’s group continued, a second man and I grew concerned that not enough was being done to push the cheating husband towards taking responsibility for his actions and showing true remorse, even as the web of life around him become more embroiled in the scandal. I left the men’s group, feeling that by failing to confront the man we were perpetuating sexism in the same way that an all-white group that fails to confront a racist perpetuates racism. Ultimately, resolving the problem was up to the man and his partner, but I felt a strong need to create a boundary so that I would not be complicit in the situation.

From this experience, I saw three things. One was that the man was misusing the power he had as an ordinary man; if he held the power-over-others controlled by the politician he detested, I wondered how much worse the philanderer would have been. The second was that his focus on the failings of a famous, powerful man was a way for the cheating husband to avoid facing his own failings. The third was that by betraying his wife and causing their circle of friends and acquaintances to become embroiled in the scandal, he was making himself less powerful and losing time and energy he could have used in working for policies he supported. His betrayal lessened his own ability to change the world as he wished for it to become.

In my early life, I was self-centered, arrogant and thoughtless about my effect on people around me. I ignored the trauma that contributed to my personal problems and displaced anger onto others rather than face what the psychologist Carl Jung called “The Shadow”—the painful feelings and hideous aspects of my inner self. My early adulthood was filled with crises and turmoil while I trumpeted with pride my belief that I had a vision to make the world better and to overcome evils of those I opposed. Like the man in my men’s group, my own world came crashing down around me as a result of my own actions and the turning of the karmic wheel; what I sent out came back to me, I reaped what I had sown.

The crises and turmoil of my early adulthood were crucial in my overcoming, at least for then, my egoistical failings and my own desire for power over others. Seeing clearly how I was responsible for my life falling apart, I realized that my first responsibility was for my own life to work and for me to try to be honorable and harmonious with those around me.

Rebuilding my life and my ability to provide for myself economically and emotionally took years, requiring the kindness and help of family, friends and professionals. Once I was able to reach the point of self-sufficiency and some luxury, I began to help others in need, including the community around me. While I remain oftentimes far too insensitive to the needs and feelings of those around me, I’ve reached a point in my life where I can say that, for the most part, I can give the gift of my life working to others. In doing so, those around me and those who care about me benefit, just as I do.

There is probably no greater gift that people can give those who love us than caring for ourselves and having lives that work well. This simple, crucial gift is the threshold to a life of happiness, health and movement toward sustainability. Without it, we and those who love us are helpless to change our web of life for the better, much less the larger human and natural worlds.