GUEST BLOG SERIES: My Vision For A Healed World & Where We Go From Here
By: Paul Kazyak
To Us, or For Us? Why We Need a New Approach
Before we move on to our next post, we wanted to share with you some feedback from folks who read the first post in this series. Several folks asked for a roadmap of what topics will be covered in future posts- we’ll do that in this post. Others provided valuable critique and suggestions about the nuts and bolts of the post-these thoughts are always welcome and will inform our writing in future posts. And one person suggested that the bulleted points deserve more reflection because they are foundational to understanding where we find ourselves and what we need to do about it. With that suggestion in mind, we have some ‘homework’ for you to try. For each point, quietly reflect on and then write down an example or two from your own life that relates to that point. Doing this will help to scaffold your learning and increase your ability to recall and apply the principle as you work to create the change the world needs.
In our last post, we looked at the state of the world and how we got to where we are. This time, tapping into the wisdom of environmentalist/entrepreneur Paul Hawken, our goal is to help you reframe the situation in a way that allows you to think and act optimistically and proactively rather than reactively or even just shut down because the odds of success are really low. Let’s get started.
Think about challenging situations that you have experienced in your life. When bad things have happened to you, have you ever held yourself blameless and therefore not responsible for anything going on? In the world of sports, perhaps a good analogy is playing on a team where a tough loss is attributed to bad calls by the referee. Have you willingly placed the blame on others and determined that the way to fix the problem centers around getting ‘them’ to change what ‘they’ are doing? Have you ever been locked into a rigid, reactionary stance and a belief that only your solutions have validity? Have you taken things a step further and demonized those who you consider to be ‘other’? It’s an incredibly easy thing to do, but does it help solve the problem at hand? From your personal experience, how often has your ‘other’ side come to see the stupidity of their ways and decide to agree with you 100%? In our experience, this does not happen too often…
Ok, so maybe it feels good to demonize, but what if we were to take Paul Hawken’s seemingly radical view that the current state of the world and the feedback it is providing are happening for all of us and actually providing wisdom that we need to solve our problems? What if we take the view that our “others” are just reacting to the feedback they are experiencing? What if we take the view that these “others” really are doing the best they can with what they know? Would that look like and feel like? Please reflect on this for a minute or two.
After some reflection on this very tough issue, hopefully you can start to allow for the possibility that by refusing to cast blame and listening to those who do not share our views, we allow for a whole new world of opportunities to open in front of us via whole new ways of thinking. We can see that the best way forward may not actually be your pet solution of going from point A to point B, but instead could be point A to point D to point G, or even a route that may not even be evident at the moment. We can envision a new future where our commonly held values (and we do have those!) come together on shared purpose, and we can unlock the creative genius that lies within our collective minds to get to our mutually desired future. We can begin to cheerfully and joyfully address the greatest crises that mankind has ever faced- because we see them as a wonderful gift- the biggest opportunity that mankind has ever been presented with.
When we adopt a ‘happening for us’ view, we can collectively establish big, aspirational goals that allow our imaginations to soar around how what we can do will contribute to moving the needle in a big way. Since you are reading this because you want to create positive change, what might your vision of a healed world look like? Try writing down some thoughts about your big ‘why’, what values your vision exemplifies, and what picture of the future you see coming to pass that others might identify with. Since we are asking you to paint this picture, it’s only fair that we do the same.
Paul’s Vision for a Healed World
We will create a peaceful, beautiful world that is environmentally sustainable and naturally regenerative. Using nature as an example, there will be no waste, and no unemployment- because these do not exist in the natural world.
It will be a socially just world where there is no ‘othering’, because our entire human family deserves the chance to thrive and live life to our fullest potential.
Our world will also be spiritually regenerative, with abundant nature such that we are constantly uplifted and renewed.
In this world, everyone will have ‘enough’, especially the future grandchildren of all species.
We will succeed in this grand challenge together, for only with our collective wisdom can we meet the greatest opportunity that any group of humans has ever faced.
Please feel free to share what you wrote in the comments section! 😊
Now that we have begun to zero in on what we want to see in the future, are there some guardrails we might want to apply as we think about solutions? Going back to the things that may have contributed to our current state of peril, we suggest that the following may be appropriate to consider:
Our actions should promote the fact that we humans are all related- there are no ‘others’ in our family. We are family, period.
Our plans should promote the idea that we are part of nature and cannot exist without it. All living beings are related to us- there is no ‘them’.
We are at our best when we have frequent and meaningful opportunities to be in nature, so our solutions should include widespread regeneration of the natural world.
Although the ancestral forces of our “Ancient Brain” are powerful, we can and should incorporate social science approaches such as peer pressure to do the right thing to help counter these tendencies.
As a workaround to our inattention blindness, we can thoughtfully and fully engage others who have different lived experience and worldviews than us so that we don’t miss key observations. This needs to be a continual process.
To minimize our propensity for silo-ing and competition, we can and should relentlessly seek collaboration and create rewards for collaborative behavior and the seeking of win-win opportunities.
To release ourselves from the mind-trap that encourages us to expect those in authority to develop solutions without meaningful input, we need to adhere to a strict policy of developing only solutions that are leaderful and based on intentional collaboration.
We need to adopt and promote the view that we as individuals are a part of every mess, and that our problems provide immensely valuable feedback about how and where we need to work.
While technological solutions need to be a part of how we get out of the mess we find ourselves in, we also need to acknowledge and include the importance of humanity living in ‘right relationship’ with the world. We need to change how we operate, not just what technology we use.
Do some of the points raised here rise to the level of ‘Core Concepts’ for finding durable, workable and meaningful solutions? Are there others that we missed that should be included? That’s up to you to decide - feel free to post your thoughts.
In our next post, we are going to examine the dangers of ‘loving the problem’ so much that much of our available energy is spent on it.
Lastly, we promised to let you know what is coming in the series, so here is our current thinking for post topics:
Don’t Love the Problem! Getting Unstuck
Understanding Why Others Don’t See the “Obvious”; finding common ground
Sorting it Out: What to Work On
Toward Solutions: Walking the Walk
Toward Solutions: Building Community
Toward Solutions: Engaging Businesses/Organizations
Toward Solutions: Hope for the Future- Cool stuff going on
Toward Solutions: Make a Commitment
Toward Solutions: Core Concepts for Making a Difference
Hoax vs Reality: Combatting Disinformation
Self-care & self-protection Staying in the Game
Manifesto for Your Life
Until next time…
- Paul
Sources:
Hawken, P. (2017). Drawdown: the most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming. New York, New York, Penguin Books.