I’ve been acting as scribe to a group that started with a move toward a strategic plan and is now changing its perspective to go in the direction of small changes rather than big aspirations. It looks for guidance primarily through its own traditional documents and I join them in that. But I also follow some of the literature that is sometimes termed ‘self-help’, though it may also have implications for a broader community like an organization or a charity. Reading both at the same time may create a sense of disconnect – but sometimes the two converge.
We’re still trying to overcome the challenges of the pandemic – not helped by the news that several friends have just tested positive for the virus, albeit with symptoms rather than full blown illness; but we are not fully safe from it yet. Someone recently observed that he has never been more fearful in the face of government corruption, war, forest fires, collapse of institutions and respect for their role in civil society. We know that change throughout history has often come from the margins, but how do we implement worthwhile changes when we have so little power to participate in either the market economy or the governments that are supposed to counter them.
There is always a gap to what we aspire to and the reality we face. We also live in an era of individual and group self-interests. We may have better angels in our natures, but it is interesting to see how quickly these collapse when our individual or group interests come into conflict with those of others. We’re also in the era of wicked problems with multiple strains that overlap – climate crisis versus employment, for instance – or agricultural practice and its effect on climate, capitalist economies that exploit nature, indigenous cultures destroyed because we wanted their land. Sorting these out is huge and beyond our individual capabilities – but we have to start from the edge – with commective groups like SCAN that I recently described. I’ll pay my membership.
The old wineskins don’t work. But starting with ourselves is hard. I recently picked up a copy of the book, Atomic Habits again. There are several suggestions of ways to start helping ourselves to revisit our better angels – without thinking that personal motivation is the way to go.
The author, James Clear, thinks we have it backwards. We go about making personal changes by focusing on the outcome we want by setting goals. New Year’s Resolutions and starting back to school in September are times we typically do this – and usually fail within about a month. If we want to lose weight or obtain straight A’s these are worthwhile priorities, but we don’t get there by wanting them or willing them to happen. The second stage is the system or process we set up to make them happen and ensure that it is followed with precision. If we were machines, we could set a timer to repeat the process automatically but we are not. We are people driven by emotions even though we have reason, as author Jonathan Haigt describes so well. What Clear prescribes as a way to get around this is to focus on identity – good advice to the young who follow influencers. Who do we wish to become? It means setting up really small steps to get there over time. Such small steps apply to individuals but also to communities. And we have to look at both the systems that are outside of our immediate control – but also at the ones that are inside it. The latter is the place to start first.