Rebuilding Landscapes for Sustainability

Here are some ways to rebuild landscapes for sustainability.

• Reconstruct or hardwire buildings with renewable energy eg. solar, wind, biogas
• Develop alternatives to automobile transportation such as a bike sharing program
• Community gardening or local farming
• Restoration of wildlife ecosystems
• Recycling and neighborhood revitalization 
• Get involved with social program's like youth employment or mentoring or volunteering

These aspects can be used to build resilient communities which, taking into account current and future economic environments, could stand you in good stead. Which one are you going to take up today? 

Standards-Based Education = Fast Food

Industrialized education is like a McDonalds joint;

both involve standardization. There's no food for thought, you can leave your inquisitive mind at the door. Challenging the system is outlawed; what they require instead is complaint pupils or staff.

All McDonalds joints smell and look the same, and their food tastes the same too. It tastes of plastic. In a standards-based school there's no room for curriculum growth and development, the same text books have been churned out on conveyor belts for decades.

The fast food joint is designed to maximize profits, the standards-based school is designed to maximize test scores.

Do we need more of this, considering our current economic and environmental climate? I would argue there has to be a shift, in education to project-based learning with more emphasis on creativity, resilience, motivation, passion and enthusiasm - things which cannot be measured or scored against.

In food systems there's got to be a re-localization and simplification of how we produce and consume food. Not only that but there's got to be more community involvement in redesigning a system which nourishes mind, body and soul.

Do we want more of the same; fast, mind-numbing and replaceable? Or do we want something more real; slow, nourishing, ecologically conscious and relationship enhancing?

Finding the Right Balance

How do we arrive at a whole systems perspective for the greater good of communities? One way I believe is to develop more balance between the working parts of the whole. How do we do this? Here are some pointers:

Vision - emphasizes what is possible in the future. Therefore the focus is on creativity, innovation and design in relation to sustainability. Identity also comes into play here in that understanding who I am and what's important to me contributes to the direction in which I'm going.

Place - relates to preserving traditional ecological environments that have subsequently been threatened by industrial growth and development systems. This is especially important in how humanities history and values have impacted the land on which we live and sustain ourselves.

Relationship - refers to the feminine and humans in communion. How do we relate and communicate with each other? The health and vibrancy of humanity depends on how adequately we're fed, sheltered and cared for. In other words, we are not separate from each other but we are instead intricately connected to each other and the planet which we inhabit.

Action - refers to the masculine and agency. What are the strategies and tactics we use to asses obstacles and costs to our community's resources? For example, in the industrial food system, we now have an unhealthy masculine version of how food is grown, transported, consumed and wasted because there's no balance in understanding the connection between all these moving parts.

As soon as there's a disconnection in any one of these parts, the system experiences imbalances that disrupt the well being of all. So our current dilemma is striking the right balance between all these connections which are part of a greater whole.

How to Align Identity with Vision?

Here's a question I asked a client in one of my coaching sessions this week: what happens when your identity (who am I, why am I here, what's important to me) does not align with your vision?

Having talked this through with my client some concepts started to emerge. We both agreed that this could be the source of a certain amount of anxiety or discomfort as the disconnect between who you are as a person and where you wish to go with your life is divided.

However, getting tangled in the notion of right or wrong and good or bad only adds to the stress and frustration (the feeling of disconnect, or even shame). Why not just be okay with the idea of searching, or not knowing fully the purpose of your life? This can be the source of great struggle though (how often do we wish to arrive at our destination as quickly and seamlessly as possible). The path to success is never a straight line though. We can get dragged off track numerous times, we may even end up going backwards for portions of our journey.

Another important point I thought was the question of values. Digging into your values can be a good way to reconnect with, not only what's important to you, but to also give yourself the opportunity to realign with your vision. How connected are you to your values, how do they shape your ideologies and narratives and do they serve or limit your growth and potential?

To what extent is your identity aligned with your vision?

Local vs Global

In this post I take a look at the comparison of local economies versus global economies.

The reason I'm writing this post is that I believe there has to be a shift away from global economies and a transition towards local, diverse and resilient economies of scale.

Why is this you may ask? Well, we live in a context where it no longer makes sense to pursue large, fractional, global economies. This is due to peak oil (the age of cheap oil is over) and climate change. In the past apples that have been grown in the UK have been shipped to South Africa for waxing, only to be shipped back to the UK or USA to be sold to the consumer. This is no longer affordable, sustainable or environmentally friendly.  

The transition to local economies means less dependence on fossil fuels to drive the whole production process. What else does it mean? Here are a few insights.

• Greater focus on community, working together, cooperation, giving and sharing
• A connection consciousness; local communities understand how we are connected not only to each other but to eco-systems for our well being too.
• Shorten the distance; this means no longer exporting or importing goods that can be made locally. This actually means there's greater opportunity for skills and business development on the micro scale.
• Local farms can diversify their produce. As used to happen in the traditional farming systems, one could produce up to 10 times more food per unit of land. 
• The interest is in productivity as well as ecological sustainability.

How does this differ from our current systems?

• Standardization drives the production process so that as many types of a single product can be driven to market
• Mono-cultures have been aligned with cheap energy exploitation in order to drive the growth or profit motif
• Large-scale, same products and machine orientated production processes ensure that large corporations like Monsanto swallow the local producer whole. 
• Huge amounts of waste are produced by the global system on a daily basis. 
• The global system of industrial growth does little to ensure any vital elements of bio-diversity are sustained or built upon. 

Although a shift away from fossil fuels means that the global system is deconstructed, I believe that new local, more resilient economies actually give us the opportunity to re-align with what's important to us - namely; community, connection, peace, happiness, meaning and well being.

Connecting the Dots...

Moving from job (working for a wage) to career (work takes on greater significance) to calling (doing work that's part of a greater purpose) is, I would argue, a process of aligning the following:

Talents: what am I naturally good at? This is a paradox because I could want to be a guitarist yet not be particularly good at playing the guitar. I might not even be that interested in playing the guitar. However, if I have the motivation to put in the deliberate practice of mastering the guitar (10 000 hours) then I could assume that I'm relatively talented at playing the guitar.

Interests: what do I enjoy doing? This too is not defined by any one particular set of attributes. Ask most students in college what they're interested in and you could get a whole range of remarks from hockey to basketball, reading to music. This is not the point. The point is, pick an interest that you feel most drawn to and begin to mold and craft that interest into a rare and valuable skill. Rather than becoming obsessed with one particular passion, this affords greater room, maneuverability and scope for growth.

Vision: how do I see myself in relation to my work, family, relationships in 10 years time?  Connecting with your vision is however much larger than merely projecting how you see yourself in the future. It requires digging into identity and asking yourself those challenging, often uncomfortable questions such as, who am I? What's important to me? Why am I here?

Direction: where am I now in relation to my vision? This relates to internal as well as external context. I cannot begin to shape and mold my vision if I do not first understand who I am and how I relate to external context so that I can begin working, through deliberate practice, to get to where I want to go. And this is not to say that where you want to go will be the same a couple years down the line. However, we use this as a frame of reference for beginning on the path to mastery.

Where are you positioned in relation to these qualities, how have they shaped you thus far and how can you use them to build the life you desire?

Learning from Failure

This week, while working with a student, I was made to reflect on the process of learning from failure.

In the case of my student, she was faced with the harsh reality of being rejected from the college of her choice.

And this got me thinking about the whole process of failure or rejection. Firstly, what actually happens when you fail or get rejected and secondly, how does one process this and then realign oneself with ones vision and direction?

So what happens when one fails or is rejected? Some sort of uncomfortable feeling is inevitable, accompanied by some thoughts like - I'm not worthy, or I'm not good enough. There's some form of doubt that creeps into ones thinking as one questions ones own ability in some shape, form or fashion.

Let's face it though, rejection or failure is a part of life. It depends on how we relate to the process; if we get sucked into or not. If we get consumed by those 'poor me' thoughts of; "look how hard I tried, and I still never made it," then invariably we're setting ourselves up for some further suffering or pain.

However, if we just give ourselves the opportunity to feel into the whole concept of failure or rejection, we can then create some space in which to realign with what's truly important to us. Maybe not getting accepted into the college of your choice opens another door to something with greater potential.

But if we're stuck inside those thoughts that replay our lack of self worth, it's very hard to see a way out. So the first step is to create some space around the crisis or shock event. Reconnect with what's important to you, or delve into your interests and begin to work with them with renewed vigor and vitality.

It's important to integrate what you learnt from the experience though, otherwise you'll be prone to repeating the same mistakes. That's why looking inside yourself at the time of your rejection or failure holds such massive potential for learning and growth.

In Carol Dweck's book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, she writes about the fixed mindset and the growth mindset. The fixed mindset views failure as something that defines and limits one ie. I'll never be any good at that! The growth mindset asks, "how can I learn from this experience and use it as an opportunity to better myself?"