Sustainability

WorldChanging: Tools, Models and Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future

If we really are going to create a sustainable future, the first thing that really has to change is our mindsets. It may be that ‘solutions’ are not enough: what is required is for us to fundamentally reassess why we aspire to work hard in ‘good jobs’ for social status, fly abroad to broaden our minds, live in cities far from our families and then travel to see them. Why simple things can’t make us happy because we think we’re failing if we don’t ‘do well’; and how to give all of us the confidence and the desire to do things differently.

I pursued the “American Dream” for a long time. When I had children, I read a quote that changed my thinking. It read,

A hundred years from now
It will not matter
What my bank account was,
The sort of house I lived in
Or the kind of car I drove

But the world may be different
Because I was important
In the life of a child

And my thinking began to change. I figured out how much I was actually making by working while my kids were going to daycare, and it was something like $12,000 after taxes, transportation, daycare, work clothes, and all that were taken out. I figured for that, I may as well be home with my kids, so I quit working and went back to school for my MBA in the evenings. Yeah, we built up some debt, but it was worth it – I was home with the kids to watch them grow up, and still getting my “adult time” in the evenings, as well as increasing my future earning ability.

The year I got my MBA, my dad died, and my world shifted again. As my shrink said, when I went back to him after that happened after a four year hiatus in therapy, “He was your rock, wasn’t he?” And he was, the one who kept me sane through growing up with a hyper-critical mom who could find fault in whatever I did. My dad worked on so many projects with me, and when I made a mistake, it was always, “Well, you and I are the only ones who will know, hmm?” It was like a code, we’ll fix it and not tell mom, she’ll never know you weren’t perfect. But with my rock gone, my world felt shattered. Why work hard, why build a great career, if when you are gone, people come and say kind words and then walk away as if you had never existed? There were hundreds of people at dad’s funeral, so many said kind words to me that day – and I never heard from them again.

So I shifted a bit again. I worked as a consultant instead of full-time, taking on projects that interested me, only going full-time when it really seemed worthwhile. It was nice to have that choice, that luxury since my husband did well. We stayed in the smaller house we thought we would be in for five years and have now been in for twenty. We bought used cars instead of brand new ones. Small sacrifices, but they felt larger in a town where everyone wanted the bigger car, the bigger house, the newest big screen TV, wanted to see their kids go to the best schools. I didn’t push my kids, I’ve let them develop at their own pace, a frustration at times, but they are good people for it.

And then, my world shattered again. I was working full time, my husband was tired of his job and feeling depressed, I felt neglected and had an affair. A mistake, but, it felt right at the time. I didn’t know then that I was bipolar, seeking a manic high in sex and buying expensive things and wherever else I could get it. I lost friends, I lost my best friend, I had a manic episode and a full breakdown. I quit my job, and spent a year rebuilding myself from the ground up, questioning everything I knew and thankful I had a great husband who stuck by me through the whole thing.

I finally found the right drug, lamictal, that is my wonder drug and makes all the difference in my life and keeps me sane and happy. Just yesterday I referred it to yet another person, a stranger I barely know whose wife is bipolar, to try and help someone else through this life-shattering disease. Spiritually, I connected with Tao, and that has made all the difference to me, that simple little 81 verse thousands of years old bit of wisdom. I started this blog and if you went back to the earliest writings, you can see some of those shattered little pieces. It has changed, I have changed, and grown, and become more fully myself.

And then, my mom died. I was the one who had to handle everything, the funeral, cleaning up the house, getting my disabled sister and nephew into guardianships and conservancies, fighting with the stupid evil company JP Morgan to try and get the estate settled. My brother and I have been fighting with them for three years now to get the last of the estate settled. I took my parents ashes to Hawaii and floated them into the ocean off Kauai, a place they loved. I keep the photo of that beach by my computer, look at it every day.

And after all this, what is important to me? My family, my husband and kids. My friends. My wonderful golden retrievers and cats. The political work that I do. This blog, and all the people connected to it, and the hundreds of people I connect to online every day trying to change the world a little bit at a time. I love all their attitudes, the strength and spirit of the people who write so beautifully every day. I struggle to find the strength in the people around me in my daily life, wishing I could change their attitudes, make them care about politics, about global warming, about sustainability.

The rich get richer and enjoy their toys and wonder at the vapidity of their life, why those new shoes and TVs and cars and trips to Europe or Jamaica or wherever don’t make them happy for very long at all anymore. The powerful watch their world crumble, brought down by their sexual pecadillos and their own hubris and pride. The evangelicals turn to their god and wonder why the rest of the world can’t be made to fit their ideal, while their children turn away from the church and find reality. The nations battle for cheap oil instead of finding real sustainable alternatives, while the world heats up degree by degree as all that carbon going into the atmosphere adds to the problem. Six years on in a country falling apart, our court-selected president cannot admit he’s ever made a mistake and fails to see all his failures. America is an illusion, an unsustainable mess, and doesn’t even know it.

I cannot make people care. I can only do what I can do, make my own life different, raise my children differently, tell my own story and hope for change. It is not enough. It will never be enough.

But, it’s what I can do.