The Boston Marathon Bombing Cannot Change the Reality that Goodness Trumps Evil

Posted on April 16, 2013 by zoeweil
Young women consoling each other

Image courtesy Brit/Flickr.

It’s easy to feel despair in the wake of evil.

I read a post on Facebook after the Boston Marathon bombing from a person who wondered if she wanted to keep living after such a senseless, cruel, horrible act of violence. I sympathized. How do we cope with such insanity? How do we hold on to our belief in goodness?

Over the many hours that followed the bombings, practically all I read – on Facebook, through Twitter, and in the news – were outpourings of support and love and care for the victims and their families, and for the city of Boston itself. I read nothing that was cruel or heartless; nothing that supported the bombings; nothing that reveled in suffering.

No, millions of people are expressing love and compassion.

There is darkness in the world. There is cruelty and meanness and wanton violence and political violence. But they are ultimately small acts in the face of massive goodness – awful as they are when they happen. History shows a consistent and relentless shift toward greater democracy, greater understanding and tolerance, greater acceptance. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” and he was right.

Don’t we see this everywhere: Women voting and going to school; civil rights spreading across the globe; gays and lesbians receiving equal rights in many countries and states; animals receiving protections (albeit still far too limited) unheard of in previous centuries; global outcry against injustice, against exploitation, against environmental destruction?

Are our violent tendencies gone? Of course not. But we are not cheering at the Coliseum as slaves entertain thousands in fights to the death. Instead, we are crying by the millions as our fellow citizens are injured and killed by bombs detonated at a hallmark of our physical achievement: the Boston Marathon.

Let’s remember this: For every person who is evil, there are countless people who are deeply kind. For every murderer, there are people coming to the aid of strangers in droves. For every act of senseless violence, there are thousands of acts of meaningful goodness.

There is a way to speed the arc of the moral universe toward justice. It is through humane education: education of the mind so that we understand each other across borders and cultural boundaries; education of the heart so that we care enough to build a world of kindness toward all people, all species, and the earth itself; education of the hands so that we have the skills and the tools to solve our still very significant challenges, with our wisdom and compassion as our guides.

Let’s commit to this then, to humane education. Let’s make such acts as the bombing at the Boston Marathon, as the abuse of a child, the rape of a woman, the cruelty toward an animal the story of history.

~ Zoe

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm; Above All, Be Kind; and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“
My TEDxConejo talk: “Solutionaries”
My TEDxYouth@CEHS “How to Be a Solutionary”

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It’s Not About You: Tips on Widening Your Perspective for a Better Life and World

Posted on April 11, 2013 by zoeweil

woman looking through binocularsFor my blog post today, I’m sharing a recent essay I wrote for Care2.com, an online community for people passionate about creating a better world. Here’s an excerpt from “It’s Not About You: Tips on Widening Your Perspective for a Better Life and World”:

It’s a given that we live in a globalized world.

We eat foods produced across the globe; we use electronics whose components come from dozens of places around the world; we can communicate instantaneously with anyone anywhere who has a computer with wifi or a cell phone.

With globalization has come awareness. We can quickly know about the conditions under which people live and work in other countries. We can find out about the plight of other species, or about pollution or deforestation. If the nightly news doesn’t report on these issues, we can discover them through our computers in minutes.

Knowing so much changes us. Or at least has the potential to change us. It enables us to be less tribal, provincial, and self-centered; to think of others outside our family, neighborhood, and even nation; to dwell as often on those we affect as on what affects us.

Read the complete essay.

~ Zoe

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm; Above All, Be Kind; and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“
My TEDxConejo talk: “Solutionaries”
My TEDxYouth@CEHS “How to Be a Solutionary”

Continue the conversation! Leave your comment below, and “like” and share this post via your social media sites.

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Which is More Likely to Get Past Airport Security? A Real Hamburger or a Fake One?

Posted on April 8, 2013 by zoeweil

For my blog post today, I’m sharing a recent essay I wrote for Care2.com, an online community for people passionate about creating a better world. Here’s an excerpt from “Which is More Likely to Get Past Airport Security? A Real Hamburger or a Fake One?”:

I travel often for my work. I also travel with many props for my humane education programs. Periodically, my props elicit some alarm among the airport screeners, especially my fake cheeseburger nestled with my clothes in my suitcase. On my last trip, this concern about my cheeseburger resulted in every inch of my bag being checked for drug and explosive residues and the unpacking of almost everything in my suitcase to find the suspicious cheeseburger. (It should be noted that there is nothing illegal about traveling with a cheeseburger even if it were real, although admittedly it would be weird to have it in one’s suitcase, unwrapped, next to clothing.)

I’ve had lots of time to ponder airport screening procedures, given that all told I’ve sacrificed literally weeks of my life in screening lines, taking off my shoes, my coat, my sweater and my scarf; emptying my pockets; taking out my laptop and my toiletries; enduring the pat down of my head (I wear a barrette), which invariably messes up my hair (I can be vain); and periodically getting full body searches (so fun).

And I’ve come to the conclusion that the TSA as an approach to safety is insane.

Read the complete essay.

~ Zoe

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm; Above All, Be Kind; and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“
My TEDxConejo talk: “Solutionaries”
My TEDxYouth@CEHS “How to Be a Solutionary”

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Thinking about Death Prompts us To Live our Lives with Greater Meaning

Posted on April 4, 2013 by zoeweil

In this powerful and moving TED talk, Candy Chang shares her New Orleans community’s most fervent wishes. Candy converted an abandoned, graffiti-covered building into a chalkboard wall with these words, “Before I die I want to ____________________.”, repeated over and over. Very soon, her neighbors had shared their deepest desires, and the wall was full of a community’s longings.

This reminds me of one of the keys to living according to the MOGO principle of doing the most good and least harm to ourselves and others. In my book, Most Good, Least Harm, I write about living one’s epitaph. To do so, we must reflect upon what we would want our epitaph to be. Asking ourselves these questions, “Before I die, I want to….” or “What do I want my epitaph to be?” allows us to more fully and deeply lead lives of meaning, purpose and, ultimately, joy.

If we extend Candy’s provocative, community-building, enriching question even further, by asking a slight variation on this question, we can add even great meaning to our lives: What do you want to have done before you die to make this world a better place?

With your one, precious, miraculous life, what matters most?

~ Zoe

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm; Above All, Be Kind; and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“
My TEDxYouth@CEHS “How to Be a Solutionary”

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Cultivating Patience and Perspective

Posted on March 21, 2013 by zoeweil

When I wrote Above All, Be Kind: Raising a Humane Child in Challenging Times, I explored a number of virtues that people listed as the best qualities of human beings. The list I’d gathered was long, and I narrowed it down to ten. Fortunately, “patience” wasn’t in the top ten. I say fortunately because I wasn’t sure how I would write about a quality I possessed so little of.

I tend to be a rather reactive person, reacting quickly and sometimes fiercely to things, especially to injustice or cruelty. There are good aspects to this quality. I’m able to work passionately, speedily, and efficiently, to get a lot done, and often to get what I want (I mean that only in the best ways!). But sometimes, it’s not such a good quality. I can get angry too easily, lose perspective, and catastrophize. And because I don’t possess much patience, I too often fail to wait, compose myself, and respond wisely.

And so I surprised myself a few weeks ago when I was in Chicago. I’d flown there on a Friday afternoon with plans to fly home Sunday. I had rented a car, driven nearly two hours to Valparaiso University in Indiana, where I was keynoting a Peace and Justice Symposium and leading a workshop the next day. Following the symposium, I drove back to Chicago to perform my 1-woman show at Northwestern University.

Everything had gone beautifully, but it was an intense day, and after the show, as I was packing up my props, I realized that I didn’t have my wallet. I must have left it in the car, I thought, but when I got to the car it was nowhere to be found. My wallet had everything in it: my I.D., money, credit cards, even my cell phone.

Yet, I found myself remaining so calm.

Although it wasn’t in the building’s lost and found, nor anywhere in the room where I’d performed (at least as far as I could see), I still didn’t find myself reacting very strongly. It would be a pain to lose my wallet, that’s for sure, and I’d have to figure out a lot of things in order to get home the next day, but I knew it would all resolve itself. Then, just as I was about to leave the room and abandon the search, a group of students began reorganizing the space for the next event. When a guy moved the table I’d used on the stage area, there was my wallet underneath. What a relief.

There were a few other mishaps that night, including having trouble finding the hotel where I’d be staying, not having change for the automated toll both (necessitating getting info from the car rental company about the car to pay the toll online the next day), leaving my phone in the rental car, and waiting for quite a long time to be checked in at the hotel; but I didn’t have big reactions to any of these things either.

The next morning, as I waited for my first flight to Philadelphia, I received an email. My plane from Philly to Bangor had been cancelled. I would not be getting home that night. Oh well. No big reaction then, either.

What had happened to me? Where was the impatient, reactive Zoe?

Over the years, I’ve tried quite hard to cultivate patience, calm, serenity, and perspective. I travel too often – with too many travel mishaps, including frequent overnights in cities that were supposed to serve only for connecting flights – to keep reacting as if these mishaps are a big deal. I’ve learned that they are not catastrophes.

I remind myself, over and over and over again, about how very privileged I am; that I will have food to eat and a place to lay my head and I have nothing – NOTHING – to complain about in the big scheme of things.

And this is something I think that those of us with food to eat and a home and enough money to meet our needs must keep reminding ourselves. Patience and perspective are qualities worth cultivating. Fortunately, like most virtues, they will not only serve us but everyone whose lives we impact.

Serenely yours,

Zoe

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm; Above All, Be Kind; and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“
My TEDxConejo talk: “Solutionaries”
My TEDxYouth@CEHS “How to Be a Solutionary”

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Take a Risk and Become Who You Were Meant to Be

Posted on March 18, 2013 by zoeweil
Image courtesy of epSos. de via Creative Commons.

For my blog post today, I’m sharing a recent essay I wrote for Care2.com, an online community for people passionate about creating a better world. Here’s an excerpt from  “Take a Risk and Become Who You Were Meant to Be”:

“I grew up in Manhattan during the most crime-ridden years in New York City. Despite the dangers, my parents – like the parents of all my friends – allowed us quite a bit of freedom. At six I regularly roller skated and rode my bike around the block by myself. By eight I took public transportation to school alone, walking to the bus stop, waiting for the bus, and crossing two big avenues by foot in the process. At 12 I took the often dangerous, graffiti-covered, pee-smelling subways solo.

I no longer live in New York City, but plenty of friends with whom I grew up still do, and they do not let their children do these things, even though they all did them.

… And then there were car rides with no seat belts, no car seats for babies and toddlers, kids in the back of station wagons. My son would probably be dead were it not for the car seat that protected him when I spun out on black ice and nosedived over a 12-foot embankment, crashing vertically, when he was three years old.

So all things considered our protectiveness is a good thing.

But we risk something else if we extend our protectiveness too far.”

Read the complete essay.

~ Zoe

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm; Above All, Be Kind; and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“
My TEDxConejo talk: “Solutionaries”
My TEDxYouth@CEHS “How to Be a Solutionary”

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Attention Countries with Declining Birthrates: You Do Not Need to Produce More Babies

Posted on March 14, 2013 by zoeweil
Image courtesy EnvironmentBlog/Flickr.

The earth is populated by over 7 billion people and growing. Those 7 billion people need adequate food and clean water, a home, and economic opportunity. Approximately 1 billion of them don’t currently have adequate food or clean water. The great majority of people around the globe would like nothing more than to have what the average American has, even though the evidence suggests that our planet’s resources are insufficient for everyone to obtain such a standard of living and the resulting environmental devastation might well be catastrophic.

Despite these sobering statistics, wealthy countries are bemoaning their declining birthrates, including the United States (see this recent Newsweek article). Apparently, many “selfish,” “childless” couples are impacting the future solvency of our country because there won’t be enough young people to care for the aging population.

It’s worth deconstructing this concept of selfishness versus selflessness. There is nothing selfless about choosing to have biological children. In fact, in an overpopulated world like ours, it’s rather selfish to create more people, especially when there are so many children who need homes.

I know. I was one of those people who decided to have a biological child, knowing there were plenty of orphans in need.

My desire to create another human being with my husband and participate in the grand unfolding of the lifecycle so eclipsed my values that even though I think it’s better to adopt, I chose to get pregnant. There was nothing selfless about it. Yet it’s the couples who choose not to have children who are routinely judged as selfish. They’re also asked regularly why they don’t want children, as if there is something wrong with them. Meanwhile, couples who reproduce are rarely, if ever, asked why they want kids.

There are people all over the planet desperate to emigrate to the many Western countries that have experienced declining birthrates. Instead of encouraging citizens in countries such as ours to have more children (and providing monetary incentives to do so), why not encourage more immigration of young people and the adoption of orphans?

There are ways to solve the challenge of an aging population that don’t include increasing the number of people in an overpopulated world. We need to meet the problem of an aging populace creatively and wisely, not by adding to an existing and growing overpopulation problem.

~ Zoe

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm; Above All, Be Kind; and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“
My TEDxConejo talk: “Solutionaries”
My TEDxYouth@CEHS “How to Be a Solutionary”

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4 Ways to Overcome Despair

Posted on March 11, 2013 by zoeweil
Image courtesy of MervC/Flickr.

For my blog post today, I’m sharing a recent essay I wrote for Care2.com, an online community for people passionate about creating a better world. Here’s an excerpt from “4 Ways to Overcome Despair”:

“I don’t know many activists or changemakers who don’t sometimes feel sad. The more we expose ourselves to exploitation and cruelty toward people and animals; the more we learn about climate change and the rapid extinction of species; the more we see corruption in politics and greed in business, the greater the likelihood that despair will creep in.

Some turn their despair outward into rage, which can too often damage relationships, turn off potential allies, promote polarization, and thereby prevent solutions. Some find that despair leads to depression, undermining action, which can turn into a positive feedback loop: more despair leading to more depression leading to less action leading to more despair.

To face and overcome the periodic despair I feel, I have found four things that work well for me.”

Read the complete essay.

~ Zoe

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm; Above All, Be Kind; and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“
My TEDxConejo talk: “Solutionaries”
My TEDxYouth@CEHS “How to Be a Solutionary”

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Commercialism is Kidnapping Our Brains Without Our Consent

Posted on February 25, 2013 by zoeweil
Image courtesy Koninklijke NKBV/Flickr.

Every February the Banff Festival of Mountain Films World Tour comes to Ellsworth, Maine, near where I live; it’s a highlight of the winter for us. We love watching the best films of the several hundred submissions in Mountain Sports and Mountain Culture, and without fail, unless I am traveling for work, I attend all the nights of the tour. As I did this year.

As usual, there were amazing films, showcasing incredible athletes and powerful stories. But this year there was a new, unexpected, and dismaying shift toward commercialism. The festival is sponsored by many companies. Common among them are National Geographic, along with companies that produce outdoor gear and clothing, trail bars and other foods, etc. The sponsors receive a good deal of publicity. They’re featured in the program and on the visually stunning and powerful opening festival film that introduces the tour. If you attend the festival, you can’t possibly miss the sponsors.

Commercial Overkill

This year, however, there were more product placements than I’d ever seen before. One athlete – a trail runner – was filmed repeatedly talking to the camera in one outfit or another with Salamon plastered all over it. Another – a snowboarder/base jumper – was filmed numerous times driving her Nissan, with Nissan painted on the hood in huge letters; Nissan painted across her snowboard; Nissan on her helmet. Her friend and fellow adventurer wore a Red Bull helmet. In another film, we watched an athlete packing his trail bag with Clif Bars and regularly saw him in his hat sporting a Clif Bar patch.

As if this weren’t enough, the festival hit its commercial rock bottom with the showing of the film “Petzl Roc Trip China,” a beautifully choreographed film of rock climbers coming to a remote area of China to climb its gorgeous walls and arches. The film was produced by the rock and ice climbing gear company Petzl. Petzl’s name was everywhere, including – shockingly – in the music. A Chinese man appeared several times in the film singing “Petzl, Petzl, Petzl.” Had Petzl funded this gorgeous film and left itself out of the title and singing, including its name only on the opening and closing credits, I would find myself feeling quite positive about this company. Instead I left planning to avoid Petzl products from now on.

It bothered me that Banff was willing to bring such films on tour, and in so doing seemingly embrace the encroaching commercialism of their otherwise amazing festival. I understand that athletes, especially those in sports that are not lucrative, may need sponsorships; but Banff could limit the commercialization in their own festival. There were almost 400 submissions in this year’s festival. Twenty-eight films were chosen to go on tour. It’s hard for me to imagine there weren’t films just as worthy of airing that weren’t advertisements for companies and their products. If Banff doesn’t say no, then the commercialization will not only continue but likely increase.

What’s the Harm?

Every time I go to a national theater chain and pay for my $8-10 ticket and then have to sit through photo advertisements and commercials, I am stunned by our willingness as citizens to accept this. Every year it gets worse. Now it has spread to a festival like Banff.

Some may wonder what’s the harm? Petzl created a beautiful, creative film about climbing in China. Petzl makes climbing equipment. No big deal. So what if Red Bull is being advertised on a climbing helmet or hat? Who cares if Nissan has its name front and center in scene after scene of a mountain sports film?

This is why it’s a big deal: We’re all being branded, and it’s happening younger and younger. We are losing the ability to discern our needs from our desires and base our desires on our deepest beliefs and values, rather than on others’ manipulations and influence.

They’ve Come for Our Brains (and Our Money)

Recently I taught a week-long course at a middle school in rural Maine. Half the kids in that class live in homes without television in a state without billboards. Every single one of them lives in a home that composts. Almost half raise chickens. This is not your typical class of American children. Yet when I tested their commercial knowledge, asking them if they could recognize companies by their logo or the first letter in their brand, they were experts, just like kids across the U.S. Most would have gotten an A+ had they been tested on their brand knowledge. (Feel free to test yourself in my TEDx talk, Educating for Freedom.)

They also thought that they were unaffected by advertising; but this simply isn’t true. Companies don’t spend millions and sometimes billions of dollars for ineffective marketing strategies. We are all affected. Advertising insidiously shapes our desires and habits, often without our consent.

Speak Out to Change the World

It’s one thing to submit to commercials when, in exchange, you are receiving free programming (as with much of television and radio), but If you don’t want to be subjected to endless commercial messages when you pay money for your entertainment, speak out.

Your voice matters.

Only we citizens can stop this tide and, in the process, protect our children’s ability to choose based on their true desires, not their manufactured ones.

~ Zoe

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm; Above All, Be Kind; and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDxConejo talk: “Solutionaries”
My TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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The Power of the Smallest Choice

Posted on February 21, 2013 by zoeweil

Back in December, I had the privilege of speaking at TEDxYouth@CEHS alongside Steve Wessler, a human rights educator, trainer, and advocate. His talk, “Having Courage When You’re Scared”  moved me so much, and one story he shared was particularly powerful.

He told us about a high school boy who noticed another student standing in the doorway as a crowd of other students passed by, leaving the school on a spring day, oblivious to this girl even though they had to walk right by her. She looked miserable, like she had the entire weight of the world on her shoulders. As he walked by her, he simply said, “I hope you have a good afternoon.” She didn’t respond as one would expect, her eyes opening wide, and so he looked her in the eyes and said again, “I really hope you have a good afternoon. And I really hope you’re going to do okay.” The next day, on his answering machine was a message from this girl thanking him. She had been planning to go home that day and commit suicide. His simple act of connection and kindness was enough to stop her.

I heard Steve’s talk the same day that I heard about the heartbreaking suicide of Jacintha Saldanha, a nurse, wife, and mother, who was on the receiving end of a prank perpetrated by two Australian deejays. The deejays impersonated the Queen of England and Prince Charles in a phone call to the hospital where Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, was recovering from severe morning sickness. Jacintha was the nurse who answered the phone and, falling for the hoax, patched the call in to the nurse caring for the Kate Middleton. Jacintha killed herself shortly after.

One young woman saved; another woman dead. One the recipient of kindness; the other a recipient of an unkind, thoughtless joke.

How little it can sometimes take to have such a huge impact on another person. How powerful our smallest choices can be.

Please be kind.

~ Zoe

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDxConejo talk: “Solutionaries”
My TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

Like my blog? Please share it with others, comment, and/or subscribe to our RSS feed.

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