Desire ≠ Wisdom, Part 1

Posted on January 30, 2009 by zoeweil

Last week I was back visiting the 7/8th grade class I taught for a week last November. During our humane education block in November the students had completed their individual MOGO Action Plans and together had decided to create a donation jar into which they would each put $1/week to donate to different causes each month. They had begun their individual and group plans with such enthusiasm, but their efforts have waned in the ensuing months.

“Why?” I asked.

The different reasons boiled down to this:

Desire.

Our desires often compete with what we know in our hearts to be good and right. At least for most of us. There are saints and great teachers in the world for whom this may not be true, but they are uncommon, which is why we tend to revere and try to learn from them. Did Mother Teresa have to struggle against a desire for material fortune, a big house and high-priced car, fancy clothes, or exotic perfumes? Probably not. Mother Teresa has implied that her greatest joy came from helping others. Her values, it seemed, were highly aligned with her desires.

For the rest of us, however – whether for foods that are unhealthy, unsustainable, or inhumane; or for more and more stuff that is produced in sweatshops, using toxic materials, and likely to quickly wind up in landfills; or for gossip that causes harm but entertains us – our desires often eclipse our values. Values which may well include care for the earth, other people, and animals. We are in conflict. Our desires are not fully aligned with what we know is wise.

For me, one desire that conflicts with my values is travel. I love visiting and exploring faraway places. I yearn to travel more – not for work but for pleasure. If I could justify it, I would spend a couple months each year visiting rainforests and coral reefs, glaciers and mountains, ancient villages and all the natural wonders on the earth. I don’t travel for pleasure as much as I would like, but I still do it, even though I know that each trip spews huge quantities of climate-altering gases into the atmosphere; even though that money could instead help others in desperate need.

Buddhism describes our desires as the cause of our unhappiness. This is often true. But if we can cultivate a desire to do good through right livelihood and right speech, we can meld our desires with our actions. When we want to do what is good and right, we find greater peace. To the extent that we make an effort to do the most good and the least harm, we find joy.

And when desires compete with our values, as they inevitably will, we can acknowledge them,  yet choose not to act on those that would tear our souls too deeply. And in so doing, we can cultivate our will.

I’d love to hear about your own struggles with desires that compete with your values and how you have resolved them.

~ Zoe

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Upcoming Book Tour and MOGO Workshops

Posted on January 28, 2009 by zoeweil

I will be traveling to the west coast for a book tour for Most Good, Least Harm and to lead two MOGO workshops, Feb. 1-10, and will try to publish a few posts while I’m gone. Here’s my schedule for those of you who might be in these regions:

Feb. 3 – MOGO workshop for Stanford Law School Public Interest Law Fellows (not open to the public)
Feb. 4 – Talk and book signing at Powell’s Books on Hawthorne, Portland, OR, 7:30 p.m.
Feb. 7 – MOGO Workshop, Portland, OR, 9-5.
Feb. 9 – Talk and book signing at University Bookstore in Seattle, WA, 7 p.m.

For more details visit my Appearances page, or my BookTour.com page.

~ Zoe

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Zoe Article in Earth Matters: Living Simply by Necessity and Choice

Posted on January 27, 2009 by zoeweil

Zoe has a new article in the Winter 2008/09 edition of Earth Matters, the newsletter of the Northwest Earth Institute. In “Living Simply By Necessity and Choice” (PDF) Zoe talks about how to reframe your life, embrace simplicity and community, and thrive with less.  Zoe uses the lifestyle of IHE Executive Director Khalif Williams — who has made his choices about home, food, transportation, energy, etc., based on necessity AND choice — as a springboard to show how everyone can live simply and joyfully. She says,

“There is great joy to be found in living simply, sustainably, and with awareness. As people find themselves forced to live with less, it’s understandable they will be afraid. We need clothes, food, and homes, and it is terrifying to be uncertain about these basics of life. But if we are relatively secure that we can meet these basics, then the task becomes embracing a simpler, more sustainable lifestyle rather than feeling deprived.”

You can read some of Zoe’s other articles here.

(posted by Marsha Rakestraw, IHE’s Web Content/Community Manager)

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Social Entrepreneurs Are Changing the World

Posted on January 26, 2009 by zoeweil

I’ve written about the PBS series, The New Heroes, and about social entrepreneurship in previous posts (such as here and here), and I want to share with you another website and book that profiles social entrepreneurs who are making a difference. WilfordWelch has written The Tactics of Hope: How Social Entrepreneurs are Changing the World, a book which describes a couple of dozen social entrepreneurs working around the globe, changing systems to improve the world in the areas of health, education,microcredit, fair trade, human rights and social justice, disaster relief, and the environment. The Tactics of Hope website not only includes short profiles, but also a tool to help you identify your own passions and skills to find your niche in social entrepreneurship.

~ Zoe

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WebSpotlight: KarmaTube

Posted on January 23, 2009 by zoeweil

Check out www.karmatube.org, a site with videos about people and projects to improve the world. Here’s a bit about them from their site:

“KarmaTube is dedicated to… using the power of video and the internet to demonstrate and multiply acts of compassion, generosity and selflessness…. While the stories produced may be polished and professional or diamonds-in-the-rough, the crucial through-line is this: they celebrate the work of local change agents, demonstrating the ways “do something” moments can be “tipping point” experiences for individuals and communities. To complete the circle, KarmaTube offers three simple suggestions for ways to support the action and spirit shown in each video.”

For a more generous, compassionate world,

~ Zoe

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After the Inauguration: Let’s Embrace Responsibility

Posted on January 21, 2009 by zoeweil

Thomas Friedman has an opinion piece in the New York Times today, which discusses the tremendous challenges to systemic change embedded in our constitution and politics. On the heels of my previous blog post about systemic change, it was both sobering and yet inviting. Take a look at Friedman’s essay, and if you agree with his assessment, ask yourself what you can do to summon and support radical changemaking that does not squander this moment or this particular politician who has such a gift for bringing disparate people together.

President Obama called upon us to embrace responsibility. This is something that most of us – left, right, conservative, progressive, radical, centrist, green, independent, libertarian, religious, atheist – agree upon.

We will not agree upon the exact ways in which responsibility needs to manifest itself through government, and it will be a radical act to summon agreement, but let us agree to act responsibly ourselves, as individuals, to assess the consequences of our choices and actions carefully and deliberately, and to choose to play our part in doing the most good and the least harm to others.

~ Zoe

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The Invisible World Made Visible

Posted on January 21, 2009 by zoeweil

I have spent quite a lot of time in Acadia National Park (a short drive from my home) over the past 13 years that I’ve lived here, and I can easily count the times that I’ve seen wildlife other than birds and squirrels. I see deer now and then; a few times I’ve seen baby porcupines; twice I’ve seen hares and a fox; and one time each I saw a coyote and a bat (inexplicably snoozing on a rock).

I was in Acadia right after a snowstorm recently. It was breathtaking. The snow sparkled in the sun. There were walls of icicles hanging over rocks and a frozen waterfall. There were also dozens of animal tracks. I followed a fox track for miles, spotted countless deer tracks, mouse tracks, and snowshoe hare tracks. And then there were the several porcupine tracks that look startlingly like tire tracks in the snow. There were also myriad coyote tracks that had led to large coyote gatherings. And this was just one day after the snowstorm.

I only saw a few actual animals, and they were the ubiquitous squirrels and birds, but I realized just how many live in Acadia and walk the same paths as I. I wondered what it would take for me to actually see these denizens of Acadia. I’m sure I’d have more luck arriving at dawn or waiting until dusk, rather than coming in the (relative) warmth of midday, but even then, I would have to slow down and stay very quiet. My husband once saw tracks in the snow of an otter who had roamed up steep rocks and then slid down them, over and over again, criss-crossing a headland in Acadia that juts out into the Atlantic. But, he never saw the otter, despite having arrived before dawn to take photographs of the rising sun and its lovely light on the snow and ice.

I know now that these animals are always there. To see so many tracks within 24 hours of a snowfall revealed just how invisible they choose to be. I like to think I’ll become more observant, that I’ll hunker down and patiently wait. I like to think that the animals will show themselves if I watch and listen in silence.

What does this have to do with MOGO living? From our reverence grows our respect and sense of responsibility. When we fall in love with the natural world, we are moved to protect and restore it. The soft snow made the invisible visible and told me the beginning of a story that I hope to hear now in full. I care more because I’ve experienced more, because my heart sang with joy that day.

It’s so important that all of us leave the built world for the natural world now and again, and even more important that we ensure that our children do this regularly. It is in the real world of nature that we often find ourselves moved to make the MOGO choices for a sustainable, peaceful, and humane future for all species.

~ Zoe

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For a Truly New and Better World, We Must Change Destructive Systems

Posted on January 19, 2009 by zoeweil

So much rides on tomorrow’s inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States. There are so many hopes wrapped up in the promise of his administration, but as we have already seen during the past two months since the election, many systems in government and society are flawed, and those flaws exacerbate individual frailty, making them even harder to overcome (see my post on the Stanford Prison Experiments and the book, The Lucifer Effect, for more on this). Governor Bill Richardson withdrew as potential Secretary of Commerce because of investigations of corruption; Tim Geithner, the nominee for Secretary of the Treasury, made a “mistake” on his taxes, resulting in a failure to pay $34,000 to the IRS; Rod Blagojevich has been accused of trying to sell Barack Obama’s vacated Senate seat for money or favors or both. I believe these men have fallen victim not only to their own lack of integrity and care, but also to systems that dramatically enable their failures.

I believe that Barack Obama has the potential to be a truly great president, to lead in ways that will restore, repair, renew, and build a better future. But despite my optimism and near-desperate hope, I know that he cannot achieve great change unless together we work to change the systems that at best promote inadequate solutions and at worst encourage corruption. These current systems will continually derail President Obama and all those working to solve the various problems that confront the U.S. and the world unless we change them.

Arne Duncan, the nominee for Secretary of Education, cannot fix our public education crises without our effort, our input, and our hard work. The faulty systems at play in public education will prevent real change, unless together we voice our ideas and our offer new systems, models, and approaches that work. This is a call to humane educators everywhere to take part in educational transformation.

Tom Vilsack, the nominee for Secretary of Agriculture, is unlikely to provide healthy, sustainable, and humane food to people unless the current systems that perpetuate factory farming, monoculture agriculture, rampant pesticide, antibiotic, and hormone use, poor use of water and soil resources, etc., are changed. Given the vested interests in the current agricultural approaches, and the USDA’s marriage to these systems, this will be virtually impossible to do unless we change the systems.

We can change systems, and tomorrow should mark not just the historic election of Barack Obama, not just an unprecedented gathering of supporters vesting him with all their hopes and dreams, but a commitment from all of us to learn, think, and act — to use what I have called the 3 Is: to Inquire, Introspect, and act with Integrity in order to engage ourselves fully in the true potential of President Obama’s administration. It will not be easy, because the faulty systems and our own frailties will work against even the greatest and most brilliant of changemakers. But we must commit ourselves to do our best.

Please don’t think of tomorrow as a day simply to celebrate a future that you hope will be better. Beyond a celebration, tomorrow is the day to dedicate your life, your work, and your passion for justice, peace, and restoration toward full engagement. Doing so can help ensure that we’ll all be celebrating each January for the next four years, because together we will have succeeded in helping President Obama do the job this country elected him to do.

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. day. Dr. King had a dream. It’s been partially fulfilled. Now let’s make sure we work to fulfill the full promise of a healthy, peaceful future for all.

~ Zoe

Image courtesy of transplanted mountaineer via Creative Commons.

Filed under: changemakers, citizen activism, systemic change, values | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

What’s My Life For? Purpose, Meaning, and the MOGO Principle

Posted on January 16, 2009 by zoeweil

I began Most Good, Least Harm with these sentences: “During my sophomore year in college I embarked upon a quest for inner peace. I yearned for relief from a persistent lack of purpose and meaning in my life.” In my blog posts, I’ve periodically asked, “What is _____ for?” I’ve filled in the blank most recently with “prison” and in a previous post with “education.” The first two sentences of my book carry with them an even bigger underlying question: “What is life for?”

Religion, philosophy, science and people from all corners of the world have sought to answer this question and have come up with a range of answers: enlightenment, to serve God, to love, to give, to successfully reproduce, etc. But I wonder why we even ask this question. Why do we – many of us anyway – feel such a need for purpose and meaning? Why can’t we, like my cat, be perfectly content sleeping 20 hours a day, and playing, eating, and soliciting attention for the remaining four?

I recently watched the Canadian film, Seducing Dr. Lewis, about a tiny, coastal village in Quebec, where most residents are relying on welfare checks for survival.  In order to be eligible for a factory that would employ the villagers, they need to woo a doctor to come live there for five years. It’s a great film, and I highly recommend it, but in the context of this blog post, it’s also telling. The villagers were desperate for work, even for low paying jobs that might not exceed their welfare checks, because they were desperate for purpose and meaning, self worth and inner peace. Unlike my cat, we humans don’t seem content to be served, but must contribute and earn our way to be happy.

The MOGO principle – striving to do the most good and the least harm for ourselves, other people, animals and the environment – is a way to find purpose and meaning; it helps us to discover for ourselves what our particular lives are for.

Last night, I was listening to a recent segment of the radio show, This American Life, which profiled a woman who gave a kidney to a stranger to save his life and who has since dedicated her life to being a matchmaker for kidney donors and kidney recipients. This committed woman has found her purpose and meaning.

When we decide to do the most good and the least harm; when we seek knowledge to enable us to do this; when we introspect and find the confluence between our concerns and our talents; and when we then act on our values, we derive profound purpose and meaning. We, like the villagers in Seducing Dr. Lewis, build self-respect and discover that inner peace often follows.

Funny how finding our purpose and discovering meaning in our lives inevitably contributes to a better world for others, too. The MOGO principle is a good recipe for potential enlightenment, for serving your God, for love, for generosity, and for the survival of generations to follow – in other words, for answering the question, “What’s my life for?”

~ Zoe

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Register Now for Our New Online Courses

Posted on January 15, 2009 by zoeweil

We have two new online courses that we’re launching this spring. Registration is now open to take part in our 30-day courses. We hope you’ll join us!
MOGO Online logo

MOGO Online

Assess your life, examine your deepest values, and explore new information so that you have the tools and commitment to make the best choices for yourself and the world.

March 1-30, 2009
September 1-30, 2009

REGISTER NOW FOR MOGO ONLINE!

Sowing Seeds Online logo

Sowing Seeds Online

Bring humane education to your classroom. Examine pressing humane issues, enliven your teaching, enrich your courses, and help your students become ever more engaged citizens.

May 1-30, 2009
November 1-30, 2009

REGISTER NOW FOR SOWING SEEDS ONLINE!

~ Zoe

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