During my current 13-day book tour (I’m writing this on day 6), I’ve relied heavily on relatively new technologies: email and a GPS accessible on my cell phone, for example. In six days I have slept in six beds and traveled 750 miles to many different locations. I have supplemented my GPS with Mapquest, MSN and Google Maps, just to be certain that, if the GPS loses signal, I’ll still be able to get to my daily new destinations. These technologies are a few years old. For decades I’ve been getting to new places by carefully writing down directions and using a map. No longer. I don’t even have maps of the areas I’m traveling to on this tour in my car. Instead, a little device tells me where to turn, and if I fail to do so, it calmly recalibrates and tells me how to rectify (usually to make a legal U-turn as soon as possible).

I was amazed by GPS technology for about 10 seconds. I was amazed by Mapquest for even less time than that. I adjusted to these new technologies so readily that I became irritated by their failures almost immediately. What do you mean you don’t get a GPS signal in this area?! Why is the Mapquest mileage off by .5 mile?!

When I watch the YouTube video “Did you Know?” or witness the next generation’s ability to utilize technologies so quickly without ever being taught, and when I pause to consider what is happening inside our brains, I marvel at our capacity for adaptation — even at the impressive speed of current changes. And, I marvel at our just as quick failure to adjust back, if our technologies fail us. To clothe and feed and shelter and warm and cool ourselves without the perks of civilization’s ever-increasing technologies. Our capacity for rapid adjustment is extraordinary. Our capacity to readjust when technologies fail less so.

But the truth is that it’s time to rapidly adjust to new ideas of sustainable living, to paradigm shifts about what education is for, to the MOGO principle, not just to new technologies. If we can embrace new technologies with barely a notice, we can embrace a new perspective on living that puts conscious choicemaking and engaged changemaking for a better world at the forefront of our behaviors and goals.

~ Zoe

Image courtesy of Rotorhead.

Filed under: MOGO (Most Good), systemic change, technology Tagged: | adaptation, changemaking, intentions, MOGO principle, paradigm shifts, sustainable living, technology