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.

Filed under: MOGO (Most Good) | Tagged: , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Replacing Fear of the Unknown with Curiosity

Posted on August 23, 2012 by zoeweil

I grew up in New York City. I didn’t have much access to the natural world, but when I did find myself in a park or the landscaped environs of the suburbs, I loved it. But I was also scared of the insects and animals I would find. Visiting a cousin who had a huge garden, I was almost immobilized with fear because of the hundreds of bees buzzing all around me. Once, in Central Park, I saw some boys digging up earthworms and those scared me too. On a suburban lawn, a teenager I admired caught a big black shiny cricket and that cricket terrified me. But it was when I went to sleepaway camp in Maine at age nine and discovered that there were bats who flew around inside our bunk at night that I thought I could not possibly bear it.

But each time, my fears were allayed by knowledge. I learned that the bees would not sting me, and I just needed to take care where I walked; that the earthworms were actually amazingly cool, transforming waste into fertile soil; that the crickets were completely harmless and were relatives of the grasshoppers I’d read about in storybooks and loved; and that bats could hear where I was with their sonar and would never choose to fly into me. I also learned that they’d be eating the mosquitoes that would otherwise be likely to suck my blood and leave me itchy at night. And so my fears abated, as they almost always do when we understand.

It’s not surprising we would be afraid of the unknown. Millions of years of evolution have prepared us to fear lots of things that might threaten us, and our fear is a good protector much of the time. But our unexamined fears cause a host of problems. They lead to bigotry and prejudice; insular behaviors and group-think; judgment and assumptions; stagnation and lack of creativity.

Our best corrective to unwarranted fear is curiosity. The more we can approach what is new and potentially frightening with an open and curious mind, the better our chances of learning and understanding rather than judging and assuming. And the greater the possibilities for living harmoniously and sustainably.

Today, try just being curious. Suspend your judgments and assumptions to the greatest degree possible and embrace your capacity to ask questions and learn. See what happens.

~ 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“

Get tickets to the October 13 NYC performance of my 1-woman show: “My Ongoing Problems with Kindness: Confessions of MOGO Girl.”

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

Filed under: MOGO (Most Good) | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

Occupy Yourself: Action is the Antidote to Despair

Posted on October 21, 2011 by zoeweil
Image courtesy of Mat McDermott
via Creative Commons.

For my blog post today, I’m sharing a recent post I wrote for Care2.com, an online community for people passionate about creating a better world. Here’s an excerpt from Occupy Yourself: Action is the Antidote to Despair:

“As I’ve watched and read about the Occupy protests spreading around the world, I’ve found myself growing ever more optimistic that at long last, fueled by a combination of righteous anger, passionate concerns, as well as growing fears, we are waking up from a trance and are taking the necessary steps to create viable solutions to our complex, interconnected and growing problems.

There’s a Star Trek episode called ‘This Side of Paradise’ in which a group of colonizers on a bucolic planet are drugged by the spores of a flower that make them wholly happy, yearning for nothing. When the starship Enterprise visits the colonists, the entire crew becomes exposed to the spores and abandons the starship to live a life of bliss on the planet’s surface. Only Captain Kirk, loving his starship so much that his anger and fear served as an antidote to the spores, remains immune to the siren call of a life of ease. He manages to provoke and enrage Mr. Spock, his first officer, enough that the drug’s effects wear off him, too, and together they come up with a plan to break the spores’ effects on everyone else. Freed from the spores’ power, the colonizers realize that they have done nothing on the planet in all the years they’ve been there. Recognizing, however, that he’s taken away their seeming happiness, Kirk is compelled to soliloquize that we must struggle, work and face meaningful challenges to be fully human, arguing that this is our essential nature.”

Read the complete post.

For a humane world,

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 TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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

Filed under: changemakers, citizen activism, systemic change | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

Take the Plunge

Posted on October 12, 2011 by zoeweil
Unless it is very hot outside and the water very warm, I always find it tough entering a pond, lake, or ocean to swim. While most people I know just dive right in, I can take 15 minutes of slowly inching my way deeper before I get up the nerve to submerge. I go through all sorts of mental gymnastics, asking why am I doing this, do I really want to, and trying to convince myself that maybe up to my hips is far enough. Then I mildly berate myself for my cowardice, remind myself how good I’ll feel afterwards, and give myself a talking to about experiencing life in all its aspects. Eventually I take the plunge.

And so it was last weekend at Otter Bog. I had spent a couple of hours scraping out the accumulated poop and pee of who knows how many mice who’d made their home in the oven and cupboards in our cabin over numerous winters. To say it was a disgusting job is an understatement. I felt so gross. The pond, sparkling in the sun and reflecting the few puffy clouds overhead, beckoned. I’d get to swim by the big beaver lodge and alongside the heath. I’d clean off the mouse poop that had surely bedecked me despite the latex gloves I wore. My dog, Elsie, was already swimming in circles, just waiting for me to join her. But it still took forever for me to slowly, painstakingly, enter the cold September water.

Which is a metaphor for something, isn’t it? Change is hard, which is how I see going from a comfortable body temperature on a seventy-five degree, breezy day to entering a sixty-degree pond. And yet, stretching ourselves beyond our comfort zone, exploring and experiencing more of what life has to offer, is compelling. Life is dull without new experiences and opportunities.

And those opportunities are myriad. They reside in every choice we make: to eat something healthy and humane instead of the same old stuff offered in our mainstream culture; to volunteer where we are needed and feel the joy of giving instead of spending those two hours on Facebook; to learn something new that might change our life and choices for the better, instead of watching a reality show or American Idol or another sitcom; to donate money to a cause in which we believe, instead of buying a new pair of shoes or earrings; to mindfully put legs on a dream or vision instead of slipping into the rut of our daily norms.

Take the plunge. You’ll feel better afterwards.

For a humane world,

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 TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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

Filed under: courage, MOGO (Most Good) | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

A Model of Courageous Parenting: Ducks, Dogs, and a Walk on the Beach at Sunset

Posted on June 29, 2011 by zoeweil

The night before solstice, I walked my dogs, Ruby and Elsie, down to the shore just before sunset. A seal was basking in the last rays of the day on a rock about 100 feet off the shore. A loon cried. Sea gulls soared above us, calling. The dogs and I walked along the shore past the few houses to the long stretch of undeveloped coast, when suddenly a Mallard sprung out in front of us, walk-limping, flapping what appeared to be useless wings, apparently struggling and in great distress. I quickly got Ruby and Elsie on lead so that they couldn’t harm her, as I pondered what to do. My husband is a veterinarian, so I knew I could get the duck medical care quickly if I could catch her. But within moments, I realized what was really going on. From where the duck had first emerged, I heard little chirps.

I’ve heard of mother birds pretending to be injured and flapping around on the ground to draw predators away from their young, but I don’t recall ever seeing this before. And with such drama and commitment, too. This Mallard flapped and limped and struggled for a nearly a quarter of a mile, staying just ahead of us as we dutifully followed (well, that’s the direction we were headed anyway). When finally she felt we were far enough away, she flew to the ocean, keeping an eye on us on the whole time.

What a clever, brave, and good mom she was. She fooled the dogs, who never thought to investigate those duckling chirps. Why do so many of us humans doubt that other species can love their young as we do; can use intrigue and manipulation like the best of us; can feel and love and suffer?

For a humane world for all beings,

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 TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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

Filed under: animal intelligence and emotion, courage, humane parenting, nature | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Comments Off

Words Do Hurt…And Help

Posted on April 11, 2011 by zoeweil

There are two powerful and important videos circulating on YouTube produced by youth. The first is a brave and moving film from a vulnerable 8th grader who confronts her bullying by sharing it with us with a plea for awareness that words hurt:


The second is a beautiful, powerful, and loving response from a 20-year-old who reaches out:

What’s revealed in these two, short videos is the power of words to both harm and heal and the power of communicating to make a difference. As these films go viral, which I’m sure they will, I expect that we’ll begin to see the power of this medium not simply to inform, but to transform, in ways that our bullying prevention programs have yet to accomplish.

Thanks Alye and Erika.

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm and Above All, Be Kind: Raising a Humane Child in Challenging Times
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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

Filed under: changemakers, compassion, compassionate communication, courage, integrity, youth activism | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

MOGO Hero: Kathrine Gutierrez Hinds

Posted on May 28, 2010 by zoeweil

Quite a story about 24-year-old Kathrine Hinds, whose heroism may have saved two young Russian women from exploitation and worse. Read the story.

Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm

Image courtesy of seantoyer via Creative Commons.

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

Filed under: citizen activism, courage, heroes, human rights | Tagged: , , , , , | Comments Off

More on the Bystander Effect

Posted on May 19, 2010 by zoeweil

Just days after delivering the sermon, A Better World, A Meaningful Life, at the First Unitarian Society of Milwaukee, which included a discussion about a shocking example of the “bystander effect,” Hugo Tale-Yax died after being stabbed while coming to the aid of a threatened woman on the street in Queens, New York. He died on the sidewalk as 20 people walked by and did nothing. The scene was captured by a security video; you can watch it here.

While it is true that there are systemic and situational forces at play that influence our behavior, as revealed powerfully by Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment and described in his book, The Lucifer Effect, it is also true that not all people do nothing. Not everyone is apathetic, cowardly, or lacks empathy in situations that have the potential to bring out these qualities. In this recent example, the story only begins when Hugo Tale-Yax chooses to risk his life to help another. That twenty people walked by and did nothing (one even snapping a picture!) to help him as he lay bleeding on the sidewalk, should be a wake up call.

We are all susceptible to the bystander effect, and we must be vigilant about cultivating and nourishing our own empathy so that when our time comes to act, we will be ready. We won’t have allowed cultural norms, peer pressures, creeping inertia and apathy, situations and systems that push us toward inaction, or the deadening of our sensitivity to violence, to eclipse our values.

As the late Howard Zinn wrote:

“People are practical. They want change but feel powerless, alone, do not want to be the blade of grass that sticks up above the others and is cut down. They wait for a sign from someone else who will make the first move, or the second. And at certain times in history, there are intrepid people who take the risk that if they make that first move others will follow quickly enough to prevent their being cut down. And if we understand this, we might make that first move.”

Hugo Tale-Yax was a good Samaritan who needed others. He might have lived if only one of those people walking by him had stopped to help. Can’t each of us do such a small thing?

Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind and Claude and Medea, Moonbeam gold medal winner for juvenile fiction about young heroes

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

Filed under: citizen activism, Cultural Issues, integrity, MOGO (Most Good), responsibility, social psychology | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Why Do We Like to Gossip? How Can We Stop?

Posted on May 12, 2010 by zoeweil

gos·sip n
1. conversation about personal or intimate rumors or facts, especially when malicious
2. informal and chatty conversation or writing about recent and often personal events
3. somebody given to spreading personal or intimate information about other people

Sometimes there are good and important reasons to gossip — that is, to share facts, and sometimes even rumors, about others. If you feel confident that the news you have heard about a neighbor molesting a child may well be true, I believe you are obligated to tell other parents whose children could fall victim to the neighbor.

But generally gossip does not fall into this category. Most gossip is damaging and unhealthy. It causes more harm than good. So why is it so compelling? Why do so many of us enjoy it? Why does it seem to foster intimacy among those who gossip, when in truth, if we gossip about others among our friends, those same friends would be wise to limit what they share with us, lest we end up telling someone else?

I think it’s MOGO (most good) not to gossip, but like other things that are MOGO, our desires often eclipse our values. There are many times I make choices that I know don’t do the most good and the least harm because I want what I want when I want it. So, too, with gossip. That news about so-and-so and her scandalous affair? It’s a bit of excitement and fodder for repartee. That info about the pillar of the community cheating on his taxes? Fodder for righteous indignation and perhaps some good jokes.

When I was writing my book, Above All, Be Kind, I had a dream in which I had decided to write it under a pseudonym, and the name that was chosen was “Miss Goody Two Shoes.” No one likes a Miss Goody Two Shoes, and I found the dream unnerving. Are good, kind, compassionate, honest, gossip-avoiding people boring? Do they make other, less kind people feel judged and ashamed. Is it ultimately isolating to be so good that you refuse to listen to gossip and speak out against it? Does gossip, in its insidious way, build some sense of camaraderie and belonging, even as it should be a warning that the gossiper is untrustworthy?

I wish gossip weren’t fun. I wish I always had the strength to steer a conversation away from it. I wish that I never sought it out, as I sometimes do. I do know that there have been times when I’ve felt dirty after being at a gathering where others became the topic of conversation. I have wanted to leave, but I haven’t mustered the courage. I’ve wanted to say “I’m not comfortable with this conversation,” but have been afraid of upsetting people and sounding judgmental and self-righteous.

What about you? Do you find yourself gravitating toward gossip on occasion? If so, why do you think that is? And is it something you want to change in yourself as you strive to make choices that do more good and less harm?

I welcome your thoughts.

Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm

Image courtesy of foxypar4 via Creative Commons.

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

Filed under: accurate information, compassion, courage, Cultural Issues, habits, integrity, MOGO (Most Good) | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

Caving in Belize: Thoughts on Breaking Reactive Habits #1

Posted on April 5, 2010 by zoeweil

The night before I arrived in Belize I changed my somewhat vague plans and headed inland to a mountainous region that’s full of caves. I had the opportunity to join a group of women who were caving for the day with Edgar, our guide. The cave was spectacular, beginning with ceiling holes formed by the guano of bats who hang inside them by twos and threes. The stalactites and stalagmites were straight out of a storybook, and we explored narrow sections we ducked through, huge, cavernous  amphitheatres , and Mayan ceremonial rooms replete with shards of pottery dating back 2,000 years. As we wound our way through, following an underground stream, we arrived at a pool below a waterfall. Unless we wanted to stop there, our option was to swim through the pool, climb the waterfall, swim through more pools, climb more waterfalls, and eventually return by jumping off each waterfall into the pool below. Three of the five of us proceeded, and it was quite an adventure for someone like me who is scared of heights.

Yet, despite my trepidation, doing this sort of thing is so rewarding. I feel so alive when I am facing and courageously conquering my fears, when all my sense are engaged, when I am stretching myself to break out of daily habits. For me, it is habitual patterns of behavior that often stand in the way of making MOGO (most good) choices. My routines, my entrenched neural pathways that have me acting in some of the same unproductive and unhealthy ways month after month, my unexamined and reactive knee-jerk responses all keep me from forging new neural pathways, making more examined and better choices, and becoming liberated to use what Zen Buddhists call “beginner’s mind.”

Caving in Belize left me no choice but to learn anew, shake up patterns, and become fully present. I know I don’t need to travel so far to experience this; I can do it at home by shifting a routine, breaking a habit, and harnessing my will to discipline myself to react less and act from wisdom more. But oh, how challenging this is! Nothing like a totally new experience to offer respite from tired habits.

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.

Filed under: courage, fear, habits, mindfulness, MOGO (Most Good) | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

Next Page »
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 425 other followers