The Key To Sustainability-Common Interest
July 21, 2009 by Coach Margie
Filed under Health & Wellness, nature, personal growth, relationships, sustainability
Sustainability. What does it mean? What does it look like? More than just a buzzword, sustainability can be a way of life, a moral obligation, a lifestyle, and even a spiritual practice. Often sustainability is thought of in terms of the environment and what we can be doing to reduce our human impact of it.
But, what does it mean in terms of our personal lives, and within the realm of relationships? How does one practice or integrate sustainability, both from an environmental perspective as well as from a more personal one, into their life?
These questions, and more, were the topic of a recent Cafe Conversation that I host every month. These engaging and provocative Cafe’s provide members of the community the opportunity to come together and share conversations about the deeper, more meaningful topics often not covered in social situations. I have to tell you that this topic was one of the most interesting and energetic ones we have had in our 3 yrs running! This tells me that it is an important one, and one that lots of us need to be having often.
We are in interesting times. The inevitability of Peak Oil looms before us. Global Climate Change is undeniable. The current economic situation has everyone looking at ways to simplify, reduce, save, recycle and whatever else can be done to stretch the dollar just a little bit more. If we are to transition into these times with any semblance of grace, it is absolutely imperative that we have these conversations. We should have been having them years ago, and some of us were. Now it is no longer a luxury.
Sustainability can be defined as the capability to endure as a system to maintain diversity. This is easy to understand in terms of the environment-we need diverse eco-systems to maintain an eclectic array of plant, insect and animal life. What about the sustainability of our own personal and internal ecology?
At the Cafe we decided that individual (my) sustainability, which could also be considered well being, supports the sustainability of the whole. By putting our personal sustainability (evolution?) 1st over the relationship, the family, the community we positively effect those things in regards to their sustainability and growth. (The old put your air mask on first theory.) The connection of personal sustainability and environmental sustainability can not be ignored.
All of this is great, in and of itself. But what holds it all together? We don’t live in a vacuum, so what happens when you have 60 billion people, plus all the other species, trying to survive on this one fantastic planet? The key to true sustainability, we decided at the Cafe, whether you are talking about this whole planet, or the relationship between two people, or even with yourself, is a point of interest that is commonly shared. The point of interest feeds the commitment to sustainability. All the hard work, or all the love in the world doesn’t make a sustainable relationship. Everyone must have the desire, that common point of interest, to see it manifested, to sustain the attention and intention towards the end result of true sustainability.
To tie it all together, the final ingrediante required is a healthy dose of respect. It’s hard to maintain the desire for sustainability on our planet if you don’t respect Mother Earth. Likewise, if you don’t respect yourself, chances are you’re not going to make choices that sustain health, vitality, and other life affirming adjectives, for yourself, or the relationships you are in. This brings up the assumption that sustainability is always a positive thing. Is it possible for negative things to be sustained like ideas, beliefs and thoughts?
Of course it is. It’s probably just not very sustainable.
(Lots of gratitude to the Cafe Conversation participants for their contribution to this blogpost!)
