Our
environment is changing at an astonishing pace, driven by
ever-increasing numbers of people, technology that allows us to
transform our environment at a speed previously unimaginable, and
(thanks to cheap fuel) unprecedented mobility of humans and products
(goods and bads).
Meanwhile, people change slowly. We are change-resistant. We change when we have no other real choice. Social change is therefore a complex phenomenon: It occurs only when a large group
of people have no other choice. Bomb the hell out of Iraq for four
years and you can get four million people to flee the only country they
know, the land they love, and try to make another life, somewhere else,
anywhere else.
The
change to ecological consciousness, and the change to a life without
the automobile, will have to go through that same slow process, until a
very large group of people have no other choice, and finally accept
that they must change.
Each
of that large group of people has to agree to Let-Themselves-Change. In
that group, some are likely to be open to doing so, while others will
not. Openness to (capacity for) Let-Self-Change is a function of:
- Your
freedom to change -- social, cultural, economic and political freedom,
from responsibilities and other constraints that would prevent you from
changing
- Your worldview -- liberals are inherently more open to change than conservatives
- The time you have to change -- time you have, or time you make, to think about and then act on your intention
- The information/knowledge you have that provides a context for supporting the decision to change
- Your level of awareness and attention to what is happening in the world
- Your critical thinking skills and imagination, that enable you to assess and conceive of possible change
If you have the capacity, the next thing you need is a catalyst, a provocation to change:
- New
information, ideally first-hand observation or a context-rich, moving
story, that determines or upsets and changes what we believe to be
true, or
- A compelling argument increasing our passion or sense of urgency, or
- An important event or profound environmental change
When
we first formulate our position on something, we tend to accept the
first information, argument or other determinant of belief that
resonates with our prevailing worldview. It's easiest to 'get' to us
before we have already 'made up our mind'. Once we've done that, the
bar is raised -- the catalyst for change must be profounder. Or, to put
it another way, the 'tipping point' is higher.
But when we finally reach that tipping point, we can change remarkably
quickly. Today I listened to a presentation (with a great story line)
that changed the thinking of a whole room of people (more on it
tomorrow). I've been through similar sudden, major Self-Changes, for
example when I read each of the fifteen critical books on my Save the World Reading List.
And I have Let-Myself-Change each time I've made a major geographic
move or career change in my life. I had no choice. More recently, as
I've started to pay attention to the world, these changes have come
more often, and more easily. The wild creatures in my life have
continually provoked profound changes in me, because I am now open to
change, and because I learn so much from them. Every day, it seems, brings new revelations and new changes.
I
think sometimes we crash through this tipping point in a hurry, and
astonish ourselves at how quickly and dramatically we've
Let-Ourselves-Change. And sometimes it is as if we sit just short of
the tipping point for a long time, and then some little thing, some
final straw, nudges us over it.
An exercise: Tell a story about
some significant Let-Self-Change in your life. What was the catalyst?
Did it happen suddenly or gradually? What did it feel like -- was it an
Aha! or a sense of sheepishness ("how could I ever have believed that?).
What does this teach us about how to bring about change in others?
(Thanks to Lugon at Fluwikie2 for the inspiration for this post.)
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MADE IN CANADA
trust your
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