It has been a thought-provoking week, jump-started last Saturday by settling in for a cozy night at home to watch The Age of Stupid. The new four-year epic from McLibel director Franny Armstrong, it tells the story of a man living alone in the devasted world of 2055, looking at old footage from 2008 and asking: why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance? It spurred my husband and I into a deep dialogue on our own denial of the seriousness of the current environmental status of our planet. While we readily agree that climate change is happening and is a key issue of our time, when we honestly looked at our behaviour we had to admit that we could be doing more – lots more – to ensure that our son will have the opportunity to enjoy the natural beauty of our world in the same way we can.
The dialogue has continued, leaving us with more questions than answers. We renewed our commitment to vegetarianism – something that had slipped while I was pregnant due to carnivorous cravings, and continued to slide once our son was born because I was just too exhausted to put in the effort. Raised on meat and potatoes, vegetarianism – not just eating pasta and processed soy products, but proper vegetarian eating where you get all of the nutrients your body needs – is not second nature and takes much more effort for me. The first few days of the week went well, but by Friday night I found myself already sweeping this internal dialogue under the carpet, reaching for the emergency frozen pizza stash, and heading back to my comfort zone to engage in another of our favorite Friday night activities – watching TED Talks.
First on the agenda was Bill Gates’ vision for the world’s energy future, describing the need for an all out effort to create “miracles” to reach zero carbon emissions globally by 2050 – the goal he says is necessary to avoid planetary catastrophe. WHAM! – no room for complacency (let alone packaged, processed frozen pizza) in our generation. How are we going to achieve this monumental goal, and how can I, as a non-scientist, even begin to make a contribution that matters? Furthermore, with such huge shifts needed, aren’t my minor changes in eating habits insignificant?
Next on the agenda, Jamie Oliver’s passionate speech about the obesity-related health epidemic in North America and Europe. Double WHAM! My pizza stuck in my throat. Just to be clear, my husband and I are nowhere near obese and eat quite healthfully overall. This talk, however, brought back all of the information that I have – the stuff that I bury when I want to have pizza and coke – on just how damaging it is not only to our bodies but to our environment to eat “mindlessly” from the highly-processed, highly-transported, and highly-chemical-infused products that are now standard in most people’s diets.
Then on Saturday morning I opened my e-mail to read the latest post from a good friend of mine, Laura Mack, on honesty as a core issue in parenting her teenage son. She provided some very sobering statistics about the state of honesty – or lack thereof – with our youth. The thing that was perhaps the most troubling, was that despite the fact that they admit to a high degree of dishonesty the youth in the survey still saw themselves as being ethical and more honest than a majority of their peers.
It would be easy to be shocked at “today’s youth”, but I had to question how different I really am. While I do not lie, cheat and steal in some of the obvious ways these surveys are asking about, like a majority of our society, I lie to myself. While this might seem far less harmful, I am struggling with the dawning realization that this type of lying is perhaps the most harmful of all. It is harmful because the lies I tell myself – or the information I conveniently choose not to see or understand – are what keep me doing what is easy, what is comfortable, what I have always done, and what everyone else is doing. But it is clear from the sources above and many many more that we need to change – that I need to change. Like the woman in The Age of Stupid, (who, after winning the fight AGAINST having wind turbines put in her rural British community because they would ruin the view, enthusiastically proclaimed, ”of course we must do all we can to reduce global warming!”) I am often unwilling to see my own hypocrisy. She wants to avoid global warming, but not if it ruins her view. I want to help preserve our planet for future generations, but not if it means I have to put more effort into what I cook for dinner.
Perhaps the biggest lie I tell myself is that I don’t know what to do. This is an easy one for abdicating responsibility. I see it in my coaching clients all of the time. When they say “I don’t know”, it is a flag that somewhere, underneath their denial, and buried deep within their fears of change and their desire to stay in their comfort zone, there is a dawning awareness of what they do want and what they do need to do. Saying they don’t know keeps them safe because it gives them an excuse not to act. If they are busy trying to figure out what they want or what they “should” do, they can preserve the illusion of productive action without really engaging in any. So despite my internal voice screaming loudly that I don’t know what to do, that my non-scientist talents are not really going to make a difference, and that the actions of my non-famous self can have nowhere near the impact of Jamie and Bill, I cannot hide beneath the “I don’t know” comfort blanket and still feel good about myself.
So what can I do? One thing I can do is write about it. This, at least, is a start. Maybe, in the same way that this information has inspired me to question myself and renew my commitment to being part of the solution, it will inspire others to do the same. We can’t all be Bill Gates or Jamie Oliver, but we can all do our part. Maybe your part is to find that solution that can take us to zero carbon emissions by 2055. Maybe you will send this link to someone you know and it will give them that little extra bit of insight they needed for the breakthrough. While I am not going to be personally responsible for solving the energy crisis, I can take responsibility for solving my own energy crisis. I can start having the courage to stop burying the truth beneath my comfort zone. I can plug the energy leaks that occur when my actions are not in integrity with who I want to be and what I know I need to do.
This kind of honesty can be hard and sometimes painful on all sides, but what I do know from experience, is that when I have faced the truth, spoken my truth, and been willing to look openly at the truths others are presenting to me, it has paved the way for increased energy, aliveness, creativity, and abundance for everyone involved. I also know that seemingly insignificant actions can spark massive change. Just as Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger on the bus became an important symbol of the modern Civil Rights Movement, everything that I say and do, no matter how small, has the power to provide the spark or the tipping point for massive change. As Margaret Mead is famous for saying, ”Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
I would love to have you join me in my quest to live with eyes wide open and head out of the sand and, ultimately to create the “miracles” we need to build a world where we all can thrive. I hope that in sharing our stories – both the challenges and the triumphs – that we will give each other the strength, hope and the inspiration to continue doing our part.
