Restoring Our Faith in Humanity

Posted on October 15, 2012 by zoeweil

There were many comments about my recent essay at Care2.com, “We can (and should) care about both people and animals.” Sadly, many of them were deeply misanthropic. I can understand how some people come to hate other humans. Given the cruelty and destruction humans too often perpetrate, it is easy to fall prey to misanthropy. This is especially true for activists who daily face atrocities in an effort to make a difference.

It is difficult to maintain one’s hope in humanity if one is constantly addressing the repercussions of the worst in humans. So for those of you who need a boost and who would like your faith in humanity restored, enjoy these photos.

And here’s a video version:

~ 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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Choosing My Father’s Ties: Changing Systems

Posted on February 10, 2012 by zoeweil
When I was a child, my father would come into my room most mornings and ask me to choose which tie he should wear with the suit he had on that day. He usually brought two ties into my room from which I could choose. As I got older, sometimes I felt that neither choice was ideal, and I’d head over to his tie rack to suggest a better option. I adored my dad, and I took my job helping him with his ties quite seriously.

As a humane educator, my job now includes offering other people choices, although the choices revolve around more pressing issues than tie fashions. Offering positive choices is the 4th element of quality humane education, and it’s a critical component to creating a humane, sustainable and peaceful world. Humane education explores the greatest challenges of our time (e.g., global warming, resource depletion, human rights, institutionalized animal cruelty, habitat destruction, overpopulation, economic stability, etc.), and it offers positive choice-making as an integral component of changemaking. Like my father, I try to offer people a couple of choices that are reasonable and good, but sometimes no such choices are available, and my students must head to the “tie rack” of choices to find something better.

When there’s nothing quite good enough on the tie rack – no pattern or fabric that fits – system-changing and creativity are paramount. I never faced an insoluble tie choice with my father, but there were days I lingered for a long time, uncertain about the best choice. The best choice might have entailed designing a new tie.

We need to design new systems to solve many of our entrenched problems. The key is to recognize when a choice is good enough and when to engage fully in the process of designing a MOGO (most good) choice because none are suitable. In my book, Most Good, Least Harm, I offer 7 keys to operationalizing the MOGO principle. Key 5 is “Model your Message and Work for Change.” In other words, wear the best tie you can while designing the best tie possible. We must all engage in system-changing — whether through our work, our volunteerism, or our charitable donations — in order to create the systems that make all our choices MOGO ones. And, at the same time, to the greatest extent possible we must model our message relying on what “ties” currently exist.

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“

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Filling the Bathtub One Drop at a Time: Small Choices Matter

Posted on August 1, 2011 by zoeweil

I came upon this quote by Gil Fronsdal some time ago and tucked it away in a list of quotes I keep:

“Just as drops of water will eventually fill a bathtub, so the accumulation of small choices shapes who we are.”

It’s easy to dismiss the power of small choices. In the scheme of things, what difference does it make if you use a disposable bag at the supermarket or buy a cup of non-organic, non-fair trade, non-shade grown coffee in a Styrofoam cup, or eat a hamburger or chicken leg, or buy a new cell phone? No number of compact fluorescent light bulbs is going to save the world, and with all the problems we face, it’s easy to decide that our every day choices don’t much matter.

And really, if all a conscientious, compassionate person were to do was focus on small everyday choices to ensure they were as MOGO (most good) as possible, the good that would come from this might well pale in comparison to the work of an inventor who creates a solution to an entrenched systemic problem, or an activist who changes a system, or a lawmaker who bans a type of cruelty, even if that inventor or activist or lawmaker made a host of less-than-MOGO small choices each and every day.

Which is why I’m always advocating a both-and approach to changemaking: model your message by making conscious and caring personal choices AND work for systemic change. But Fronsdal’s quote struck me as a new lens with which to view the power of our every day choices. The accumulation of our small choices, how we treat others each and every day (others being not simply those with whom we interact personally, but also those people and animals whose lives we affect through our daily food, clothing, and product choices) adds up. These are the choices that largely define who we become over a lifetime. They matter.

So let’s try to remember each drop of water we are adding to the bathtub that comprises our life and choose it with respect and kindness.

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“

Image courtesy of missmoney via Creative Commons.

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Zoe Weil Guest Post on CrazySexyLife: “Action is the Antidote to Despair”

Posted on May 18, 2010 by zoeweil

Give yourself & your soul a boost! IHE President, Zoe Weil, has a guest post on the blog CrazySexyLife: “Action is the Antidote to Despair.” Here’s an excerpt:

“There are myriad systems that need transformation: food production, electronics production, energy, schooling, conflict resolution (can’t we come up with an alternative to war?!), architecture, suburban sprawl, transportation, and so on. Even if our individual daily choices do have a positive impact, that isn’t enough to fully transform unsustainable, destructive, and inhumane systems into ones that are restorative, healthy, and just.

But here’s the great news: when we not only harness our energies toward making healthy daily choices, but also uncover our most creative and viable solutions to solve systemic problems, we discover that we have never felt more alive, joyful, and purposeful.”

Read the complete post, leave your comments & please share it with others!

(Posted by IHE staff.)

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Zoe Weil Guest Post on Eco Child’s Play: We Must Raise Compassionate, Conscientious Children

Posted on February 16, 2010 by zoeweil

Zoe has a guest post over at Eco Child’s Play, a blog focused on green parenting. Zoe’s post challenges parents to raise conscientious and compassionate children. Here’s an excerpt:

“We parents can resist cultural messages that are shallow and lack meaning and deep purpose, but it is no easy task. As if raising children weren’t hard enough, raising deeply humane children in a culture replete with materialism, endless competition, greed, either/or thinking and myopia, is profoundly challenging. We cannot do it without a deep personal commitment to modeling humane values, without a community of like-minded parents, without schools and teachers that support and reinforce our great purpose, and with endlessly blaring media messages that undermine our values at every turn.”

Read the entire post.

In March, the Institute for Humane Education is offering a month-long distance learning course for parents who want to raise compassionate, conscientious children. Raising a Humane Child starts March 1. Register now!

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Changing Systems 2: Choosing My Father’s Ties

Posted on February 18, 2009 by zoeweil

When I was a child, my father would come into my room most mornings and ask me to choose which tie he should wear with the suit he had on that day. He usually brought two ties into my room from which I could choose. As I got older, sometimes I felt that neither choice was ideal, and I’d head over to his tie rack to suggest a better option. I adored my dad, and I took my job helping him with his ties quite seriously.

As a humane educator, my job now includes offering other people choices, although the choices revolve around more pressing issues than tie fashions. Offering positive choices is the 4th element of quality humane education, and it’s a critical component to creating a humane, sustainable and peaceful world. Humane education explores the greatest challenges of our time (e.g., global warming, resource depletion, human rights, institutionalized animal cruelty, habitat destruction, overpopulation, economic stability, etc.), and it offers positive choice-making as an integral component ofchangemaking . Like my father, I try to offer people a couple of choices that are reasonable and good, but sometimes no such choices are available, and my students must head to the “tie rack” of choices to find something better.

When there’s nothing quite good enough on the tie rack – no pattern or fabric that fits – system-changing and creativity are paramount. I never faced an insoluble tie choice with my father, but there were days I lingered for a long time, uncertain about the best choice. The best choice might have entailed designing a new tie.

We need to design new systems to solve many of our entrenched problems. The key is to recognize when a choice is good enough and when to engage fully in the process of designing aMOGO choice because none are suitable. In my new book, Most Good, Least Harm, I offer 7 keys to operationalizing the MOGO principle. Key 5 is “Model your Message and Work for Change.” In other words, wear the best tie you can while designing the best tie possible. We must all engage in system-changing — whether through our work, our volunteerism, or our charitable donations — in order to create the systems that make all our choices MOGO ones. And, at the same time, to the greatest extent possible we must model our message relying on what “ties” currently exist.

~ Zoe

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Changing Systems 1: Losing My Cool at the Airport

Posted on February 13, 2009 by zoeweil

I just returned from a 10-day book tour on the West Coast. The trip entailed 3 cities, 6 flights, one car rental, one train ride, and many speaking engagements in a variety of settings. I’m not the best traveler, easily stressing at flight delays and lost baggage, and because I need a bunch of props for my workshops, I try to make sure that I never check my luggage. It was challenging to fit 10 days worth of clothes and workshop materials into my carry-on bags, but I did it.

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

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Seven Keys to MOGO: Key 4: Model Your Message and Work for Change

Posted on December 20, 2008 by zoeweil

Mahatma Gandhi was once asked by a reporter, “What is your message?” He replied, “My life is my message.”

Each of our lives is our message. What message do you want to convey this holiday season? Holidays are often stressful. This year in particular, with so many people struggling financially, the stress may be even greater. But you can convey whatever message you want this holiday. You can reject the pressure to buy more and more stuff, and make beautiful and delightful holiday gifts instead. Here are a few suggestions for homemade gifts:

  • baked goods and preserves
  • potted cuttings from favorite plants
  • a poem or a painting
  • a treasure hunt for children with a family heirloom as the prize
  • coupon gifts such as a back rub a week or doing the dishes for the designated dishwasher for a month or the cooking for the designated cook

Shifting our way of thinking around the holidays toward modeling our message allows us to embody what we want to create in the world, but we also must work for systemic change. As long as the purchase of more and more overpackaged, toxic, sweatshop-produced, disposable, resource-depleting stuff is the norm, our individual choices will be drops in the proverbial bucket.

But when we work to change the systems so that the holidays are less about things and more about love, kindness, and joy, we help create a world in which we aren’t faced with unhealthy pressures each December. One organization, Redefining Christmas, is working to create change in how we perceive the holiday season. This site urges people to give donations to a loved one’s favorite charity as a gift.

What can you do to help change the system? Might you write a letter to the editor? Write a comment on a blog? Speak out at your religious institution?

You’ll find lots of suggestions for changemaking in Most Good, Least Harm, but for now, consider a small step toward redefining the holidays toward meaningful acts of generosity and goodness.

~ Zoe

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Model Your Message AND Work for Change

Posted on October 8, 2008 by zoeweil

There are people who strive vigorously to make MOGO (Most Good) choices in their daily lives. They choose foods, products, transportation, clothing, housing and furniture, family size, and recreation all with the MOGO ethic in mind. They live simply (that others may simply live). They model their message of sustainability and compassionate living, and this is their primary effort at creating a better world. They may assiduously avoid activism and politics, content to be doing their individual part in living a humane life.

There are others who strive to create systemic change as activists, thought-leaders, writers, policy-makers, and legislators. They may point out that simple living – though admirable – won’t change dangerous and destructive systems, and that taking action against unjust systems and transforming policies is the primary way that we create abiding positive change. They may pooh-pooh a focus on daily choices as largely irrelevant to real change and argue that whether they themselves drive an SUV or have more than two children or eat at McDonald’s is not relevant.

I think you know what’s coming.

Modeling our message and working for systemic change are both necessary components of creating a humane world. Without effort to create structural changes, our individual choices are very small components of changemaking. But without modeling our message in our daily choices, our policy efforts become empty rhetoric. Neither approach can be fully successful on its own. Without changes that create just, peaceful, and sustainable systems we’ll always be faced with daily choices that cause harm. We won’t truly be able to model our message to the greatest extent. And without modeling our message, we will lose our integrity and our credibility, crucial ingredients in successful social change.

To the greatest degree possible, we must each strive to model our message and work for change, and to do so with humility, humor, and honesty.

~ Zoe

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