“Some may be pessimistic that MOGO (most good) living can truly change intractable problems and create a peaceful, humane, and healthy world. Yet the MOGO principle is not just for the optimistic. Walking the MOGO path is joyful and meaningful in and of itself, and inevitably restores our hope as we, and others who share our vision, persevere and create healthier lives and a healthier world. As former Czech Republic president, Vaclav Havel, has written: ‘I feel a responsibility to work toward the things I consider good and right. I don’t know whether I’ll be able to change certain things for the better, or not at all. Both outcomes are possible. There is only one thing I will not concede: that it might be meaningless to strive in a good cause.’”

~ Zoe Weil, author of Most Good, Least Harm

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

This shouldn’t be too hard, as I am profoundly blessed and privileged. I have all my needs met and so much more. I have a happy 20-year marriage and a healthy, bright, generous son. I share my warm, spacious home with three great dogs and a spectacular cat. I have good friends and live in a wonderful community. I do work that is meaningful to me and others. I have so many freedoms and opportunities that I’ve become almost oblivious to them. There is nothing, not one single thing, that I lack.

Yet I complain all the time. Whether it’s my son’s failure to remove dirty dishes from his room, my husband’s forgetfulness, a slow driver in the fast lane, the weather (too cold, too dreary, crusty snow, wet snow, icy trails), too many demands on my time, extremists in the media, school systems, political systems, economic systems, health care systems, cruel people, prejudiced people, sexist people, homophobic people, myopic people, greedy people.

You see what I mean?

I’m going to try to turn this around, not because I don’t think that there are wrongs to right in the world and things that justify our anger, but because complaining isn’t a positive response to anything.

My plan is to try to reroute the deep complaining grooves in my brain and turn each complaint in a new direction. As I find myself snapping at my son for some infraction or railing against a poor driver, I will try to remind myself of what I’m grateful for (my son’s good qualities; the fact that I am lucky enough to have a car and roads to drive on). When I am distraught over a lack of critical and creative thinking, I will try to remind myself of my own challenges in this arena, my own unexamined biases, and make an effort to compassionately respond with a non-judgmental question, a letter to the editor, a new approach in teaching these skills. In other words, I’m going to attempt to turn reactive negative responses into proactive positive ones and cultivate my gratitude, fortitude, and initiative in creating a healthier, wiser attitude in life.

You may notice I keep using words like “try,” “attempt,” and “endeavor.” I have a friend who doesn’t like such words. “Just do it,” she says. If only it were that easy. Those mental grooves are deep and entrenched, and I know that it takes great persistence and perseverance to divert them and form new grooves. It’s as hard as shifting a mighty river. And so I plan to be persistent, as well as gentle. I’ve asked for my husband’s support. I know it won’t be easy.

May your own new year’s resolutions garner both your own persistence and gentleness, too. May you, too, find support. And may the new year find you growing in wisdom, kindness, and positive responses to a world that needs you.

~ Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and Claude and Medea

Image courtesy of aturkus via Creative Commons.

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

“Desire is the key to life, because desire is power. The deeper the desire, the more power it contains. The Upanishads say:

You are what your deep, driving desire is. As your deep, driving desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny.

Ah, but we are filled with such conflicting desires! And the strongest-willed among us, those who might become dedicated changemakers, leaders, visionaries, and doers, may also be those who are driven to fulfill desires that do not further a better world. What do industrial tycoons and Mahatma Gandhi have in common? Powerful wills to achieve their passionate desires.

As Easwaran’s excellent article explored, our desires are manifold and our will to manifest them a double-edged sword. He quotes the Bhagavad Gita: “The will is our only enemy; the will is our only friend.” As someone who has been accused of being strong-willed since I was a little child, I know this well. My strong will made me a challenging child to raise because I was endlessly attached to my desires and often inflexible. Yet, my strong will also became my great ally in achieving my goals and living according to my principles.

Making MOGO choices in our lives requires a strong will. Inevitably we will have conflicting desires. We may desire a certain food or product that is produced inhumanely or unsustainably. We may desire certain pleasures that have negative effects upon other species, other people, and the environment. We may also deeply desire a life of integrity and purpose and the unfolding of a peaceful, restored, and compassionate world. These desires may compete, and this is where we must harness our will.

Recognizing the range and breadth of our desires allows us to focus on those that are aligned with our values and pursue these with tenacious wills while acknowledging, but not indulging, those desires that don’t ultimately serve our greatest goals and the world we hope to create.

This is no easy task. But the very struggle can be rewarding, because when we wrestle with our desires and direct our will consciously, we create more freedom in our lives – freedom from the incessant pursuit of pleasure; freedom to create the lives we want most; freedom from advertising, peer and societal pressures; freedom to choose with wisdom and compassion.

What is your greatest desire? Your most fervent hope? Harness your will towards this end.

~ Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm and Above All, Be Kind

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

Humbly and with such extraordinary commitment, Jane Goodall travels 300 days each year to speak to groups about protecting this beautiful planet and all who live here. Imagine that. Imagine traveling 6/7ths of each year in order to teach and inspire and protect. Imagine harnessing your love for people, animals, and the earth and dedicating your life to making such a difference. With little fanfare – despite her fame – Dr. Goodall, at 75 years old, perseveres.

I want to share a story Dr. Goodall shared with us. She spoke about being in Greenland where the ice is melting so quickly. An Inuit elder talked to her about the terrible and dangerous thaw of the icecaps and glaciers that those of us in warmer climates are causing, and he said that we must learn to thaw the ice in our hearts.

I find this metaphor compelling – it reminds me of one of the elements of humane education: fostering reverence, respect, and responsibility. What is the ice in our hearts? I think of it not just as our lack of compassion, but also as our lack of understanding — our close-mindedness as well as our hard-heartedness. I think of it as the frozen ideas that need to thaw so that we can care about more than the latest fashions, trends, movies, and so on. There in New York City, mecca of fashion and trendiness, Jane Goodall invited us to thaw our hearts, and in so doing, work for real peace. What an inspiration she is and what amazing work her Roots and Shoots program – with chapters in over 100 countries – is doing.

~ Zoe

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

Instead of saying something, Sophia just stood back a bit and tried to set a good example for others to follow. Within a few minutes, she realized that her “modeling her message” approach was not working and she became angry at how people were treating the turtle. Because she could no longer enjoy the experience she returned to her beach house. She tossed and turned all night, worrying about the other turtles who would land on the beach and feeling so guilty about how she let another creature suffer while saying nothing.

The next morning she reflected on her inaction and asked herself, “Who benefited from my silence?” She certainly did not, nor did the turtle. The only ones who seemed to benefit were the people crowding the turtle, and she realized that some of them were simply ignorant about how to observe nesting sea turtles humanely and would feel bad knowing that they caused distress to an animal that they so admired. She came to believe that no one actually benefited because even those enjoying the close proximity to the turtle lost the opportunity to learn and make a MOGO choice.

This was a life-changing event in Sophia’s life, as it was the first time since she dedicated her life to being an agent of positive change in the world that she witnessed a wrong first-hand and failed to act against it. The following night she returned to the beach with her family, who shared her discontent, as another group of people began to approach a turtle with flashlights and lanterns ablaze. Gaining strength from her family’s solidarity and verbal encouragement, Sophia pretended to be a tour guide and began to give instructions to the newcomers about how to respectfully enjoy watching the turtle. Although she wasn’t as successful as she hoped to be and was disappointed in her own authoritative tone, Sophia found a way to communicate and protect the turtles, teaching others at the same time.

I so appreciated Sophia’s creative approach to the challenge she faced, and her courage and conviction in speaking out without shaming, blaming, or creating conflict and hostility. That Sophia is one true humane educator!

~ Zoe

Image courtesy of Paul Mannix via Creative Commons.

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

But in the context of MOGO, choices are very important. In fact, the concept of MOGO is based on choice. The MOGO (most good) principle asks us to make choices that do the most good and the least harm for ourselves, other people, animals, and the environment. It places responsibility on the individual to consider the effects of one’s choices and to, wherever possible, make those that are MOGO. Where MOGO choices aren’t obvious or available, the principle asks us to work for their development by engaging in democracy and helping to change systems.

Is this principle – demanding so much choice of us – a recipe for dashed expectations and disappointment? Is the MOGO principle likely to decrease our happiness by laying on a burdensome mantle of responsibility?

NO!

The MOGO principle is empowering. It demands personal responsibility, but by taking responsibility, by doing good, by thoughtfully assessing our choices with MOGO in mind, we begin to make choices that are personally life-enhancing, contribute to a better world, help others, and create community. We tend to become less engaged with marketers’ overabundance of unimportant choices and more engaged with our own values, increasing our integrity and inner peace.

Choosing MOGO is liberating, not a recipe for disappointment.

~ Zoe

Zoe’s been busy with IHE’s student residency, so this is a repost, originally posted 1/14/09.

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

Author Charles Haynes argues that education’s highest aim should be to “create moral and civic habits of the heart,” and his essay is compelling. Here are some excerpts:

“At a time when the United States faces unprecedented challenges at home and abroad, public schools must do far more to prepare young people to be engaged, ethical advocates of ‘liberty and justice for all.’ Yes, reading and math are important. But what matters most is what kinds of human beings are reading the books and doing the math.

“After all, the character of a nation is determined by the character of its people. ‘Is there no virtue among us?’ asked James Madison. ‘If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. … To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea’ (Padover, 1953, p. 48).

“That’s why, as a lifelong advocate of social justice and First Amendment rights, I vigorously support character education and civic learning as high priorities in public education.”

Haynes goes on to recount a powerful story that illustrates his point that we need to educate the heart:

“A story I heard during a trip to Israel in August 2008 gave me a deeper appreciation for how much is at stake. I was standing in the Garden of the Righteous at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. Our guide was relating stories of the Righteous—non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews—as we looked at the trees planted in their honor. During a pause in the narrative, one of our group, Richard Foltin of the American Jewish Committee, said almost inaudibly, ‘Not all of them are named.’ I turned and asked what he meant. He replied, ‘I am standing here now because of a man whose name I do not know.’ When pressed to explain, he told this story:

‘My parents are Holocaust survivors. When my father arrived at Auschwitz, they were separating those who would be killed immediately from those who would be put to work. A guard called out, “Is anyone here a welder?” and my father shouted, “I am,” although he actually knew nothing about welding.

‘They sent my father and a few others to the welding shop and told them to make a sample of their work for inspection. My father stood there looking at the equipment, despairing over what to do. Then, almost imperceptibly , the German foreman in charge of the shop slipped a finished piece of work in front of my father. My father picked it up and took it to the guards, and he passed inspection.

‘Throughout the rest of his time in the camp, the foreman continued to secretly help my father—to cover for him when necessary. And my father survived. They didn’t speak. We don’t even know his name.’

When Richard ended his story, I could not help but wonder, why did that nameless German risk his life for a Jew he did not know? More broadly, why did any of the thousands now called the Righteous respond with compassion and courage when so many others were either complicit or indifferent?

Haynes’ answer lies in education for character.

~ Zoe

Here are some excerpts:

“We want our children well educated not for success as it is usually defined in terms of jobs and money but because the success of our communities and our democracy depends on well educated, critical thinking, creative, fun loving people, people who seek truth and see through propaganda and advertising, people who understand that personal success is only meaningful in the context of the common good. Today your community celebrates with you and makes two seemingly contradictory offerings: a new sense of personal freedom and a new awareness of personal responsibility….”

“What I ask from all of us is an awareness of our fundamental reality, and then the necessary citizenship — for our communities and the world — to live our lives in accordance with that reality. This is not a chore or a punishment. It’s a privilege and a joy. It’s a life of meaning rather than consumption. It’s a life in harmony with reality. I suspect that all of you appreciate commonsense, but the habits of our lives, our consumptive desires, and the forces that profit from those habits and desires are not based in commonsense. But they can be. Commonsense is closely related to the common good and the common welfare and simply to protecting the idea of the commons. But to live by commonsense will take a great quantity of common courage from all of us. It will take courage because our status quo is the enemy of commonsense. But everything good takes courage.

I want your success — but no more or no less than I want the success of every other species on earth. Because for you to truly succeed, all the others must, too.”

You can read the whole speech at Rob’s website.

~ Zoe

On my 3rd flight of the trip, very early in the morning, I walked up to security and there was a woman checking carry on bags to make sure they weren’t too big before letting passengers head into the security line. I’d never encountered such a person at the airport, and when she told me my bag was too big and had to be checked, I argued with her. I told her that I travel a lot and had never had a problem with this bag. When she insisted it was too big, I told her I was going through anyway. Whoops. Now I’d escalated the argument, and she insisted I fit my bag into the sizing unit. It was overstuffed, and Icouldn’t get it to fit in without emptying clothes from it into my smaller carry on. She kept harping on me that it wouldn ’t fit, was too big, and would have to be checked, and I was getting hotter and hotter under the collar. I eventually got it to fit, and turned to her, sarcastically saying, “Happy now?”

As I walked away in a major huff, sweating and heart-racing, I was astounded at myself. How unMOGO was that!? If my workshop participants could see me now, I thought. I sure hadn’t modeled the message I hope to convey through my life, my words, and my actions. Most of the time, I try really hard to make the working lives of people involved in air travel positive. I know from my own experience just how stressful air travel can be. Passengers are herded through security and told to be speedy, but we practically have to strip while remembering that our laptops, toiletries, shoes, jackets and sweaters, and empty water bottles, all have to be placed just so on the conveyor belt. We have to deal with lost bags, canceled flights, being kicked off flights due to overbooking or too much weight (even if we’ve paid full fare for our ticket). And all the personnel dealing with us stressed-out travelers have to endure our anger, anxiety, and frustration. I really, really try to be extra kind to them. Until someone pushes my buttons, and I overreact. Like I did in the San Francisco airport last week.

Why did I lose my cool so easily and so visibly? Although I tend to be someone who reacts quickly to things (negatively and positively), there was something else going on. It was this: the situation and the system. As I’ve written about in previous blog posts, we humans do not act solely according to our values; we are influenced by the situations we’re in and the systems we’re part of. This is revealed most profoundly by the Stanford Prison Experiment, and I had clear evidence for the power of situation and system that morning at the airport. I was in a situation in which I had little power and was at the mercy of a rule-enforcer who was uninterested in anything but exerting that power. I was in a system in which a small, but too high, percentage of bags are lost, and in which people are made to jump over unpleasant hurdles to reach a destination. (Less than a year ago, I endured a full body, no-parts-untouched, “pat down” in the Amsterdam airport.) A value I hold dear – treating people with kindness and respect – disappeared in this situation and system.

What is the moral of this story? Until and unless we change systems, we are unlikely to model the message we want to convey as well as we want to convey it. I’m not trying to excuse my poor behavior, but to remind us that we must work diligently at creatively changing systems so that they work in favor of good modeling and MOGO choicemaking . But next time, I will endeavor with much greater effort to not let the situation and system negatively influence my own behavior.

~ Zoe

But what about those people who don’t seem to try at all? The pathological liar at work? The pedophile in your community who has damaged dozens of children? The batterer? The animal abuser? Bernie Madoff? We can dismiss such people as sociopaths, but what about all those many, many people who know what you know about the environmental challenges we face, but who choose to buy a Hummer anyway? Or who know about the terrible cruelty perpetrated on animals in factory farms, but eat meat, dairy and eggs from such farms every day? Or who realize that our world is dangerously overpopulated, but who choose to have more than two biological children? Uh oh. You see where this is heading. It’s heading right back to you and to me and to the many ways we, too, fail to make kind, restorative choices.

“But at least we try!” we might exclaim. “They’re not even trying!”

That may be true. Some truly don’t seem to try. They may not care enough. They may live in total denial. Or they may think your concerns are overblown, exaggerated. They may be kind proximally – to family, friends, associates, neighbors, pets – but simply never consider those far away whose lives are hellish because of their choices.

My job as a humane educator is, among other things, to instill reverence, respect, and a sense of responsibility among my audiences. It is to awaken care and concern, and help people to embrace the 3 Is of inquiry, introspection, and integrity so that they, like you, will learn, consider and choose what is kinder, more compassionate, and healthier for all.

I have to believe that most everyone is capable of this; that those who don’t seem to care are able to care if given the opportunity. I have to believe that if we start with children, we will prevent another generation comprised of too many apathetic, dishonest and dishonorable citizens whose desires leave no room for wisdom.

~ Zoe