The Green Mindset

March 13th, 2009

I write this piece as I think about the similarities between the Green Environmental movement and what’s happening in the US and Global economies. I don’t believe in coincidences so I though there must be a connection and I found that there is.

The following is what I see happening not only in our physical environment but also in our economic environment. In fact, it’s happening all around us because the cause of these things comes from the same place – our individual and collective thoughts.

We must recognize that who we have been, especially as Americans, has created the world around us.

Is it a coincidence that our environment is suffering to the extent that it is – with the air, land and sea in the state that it is AND simultaneously, we are all suffering through the greatest economic tragedy since The Great Depression? NO.

I don’t believe in coincidences of this magnitude. Why? Because I see the same modalities; the same mindsets that led us to do the things that we did – dump trash and toxic waste into our oceans, spew dirt, chemicals and smoke into our atmosphere so recklessly that it created a hole in the ozone as large as the Asian continent are the same ones that led us to overspend, overextend our finances and to create the oppressive, dominating, greed producing business organizations that eventually led us to our current financial demise.

What we have now is an individual, societal and business disaster! This disaster is at all levels and all facets of who we are as humans on this planet called earth. And we’ve created it for ourselves. There’s no one to blame except us humans.

Our greed, our unnatural, forced ways of being. Our modalities of excess where nothing is ever enough. Our ego, our desires, our attachments to material goods all led us to where we are today. In Zen Buddhism, we refer to this as the Hungry Ghost- an emaciated creature with an extended belly that is packed full of desires, attachments, power, greed etc.

Now the ironic part of all this, is that many of us are finding that we sought after those materialistic, ego-centric things in the pursuit of achieving the what we really wanted – camaraderie, community, friendship, space, clarity, peace, happiness, satisfaction, fulfillment, love, joy, aliveness.

We somehow misguidedly thought that those things – the hamster wheel running and buying, buying, buying and getting more status, a better job, a bigger title etc.- would somehow get us the things that we really want. But in reality, doing those things have nothing to do with camaraderie, community, friendship, space, clarity, peace, happiness, satisfaction, fulfillment, love, joy, aliveness.

I often use this analogy in consulting with my clients. It’s as if you’re trying to stop the water from filling up a leaky boat by plugging all the leaks while ignoring the fact that you have a crazy shipmate with a pickaxe punching more holes in the bottom of the boat that you can never plug up. The point to my clients is that stopping leaks is… stopping leaks.

Leaks are often just the symptoms of a disease. You gotta get to the root cause aka disease if you’re gonna really find a solution.

With our thoughts, we create our world. – the Buddha

Here’s the upside. Our future has the possibility of being green all around- out there and in here!

Since it was our thoughts that led to our actions that created the situation we’re in now, it will be our thoughts that lead to our actions that will create the future we’ll be in tomorrow.

I call this possibility of a new workable future – a world that works- the Green Mindset Movement. Because our future starts and ends with us- with us taking the right action and moving forward together, our future is an open possibility.

Here’s another analogous thing about the Green Environmental Movement and what I call the Green Mindset Movement.

Most of us that support the “green movement” don’t have a specific vision of how we want our world to be. We just know that we must produce less trash, recycle plastic and paper, use less gasoline. But to what end? Less waste? Yes. Use less fossil fuels? Yes. But to what end? What does our ideal environment look like? In my travels amongst the yuppie business elite, I have yet to hear of a specific vision of what we’re trying to make our world look like. How about “green?” Yes, it sounds like a big “duh” but from a certain standpoint, it isn’t.

The environment we all seek and unconsciously yearn for is one filled with green things like grass, trees, bushes, plants… We want our environment to be much closer to how it naturally occurs if nature were left alone. Now if you can picture that environment and I mean, really picture it. SEE IT. See yourself in that environment with grass, trees, brush and lots of it. Now look around. What else do you SEE? Or… what don’t you see? Maybe it will help if you experience yourself in that environment. What do you feel? Or… again like the seeing, what don’t you feel? Can I suggest that what you don’t feel and see is the stuff that’s in our current environment, our current world. You don’t see concrete walls, plaster, paint and the glass boxes that most of us corporate people work in. You don’t see asphalt and cars slotted into cramped parking spaces. You don’t feel or see oversized, supersized American Costco shopping carts rushing towards you. You probably don’t envision this:

You don’t see or feel any of that do you? So what do you see and feel? Nothing. Or more closely, you see and experience space… yes, space. A little more breathing room. Aaah, imagine that. Imagine standing in a field of grass surrounded by trees without the distractions of email, cell phone, office phone, people standing in front of your desk waiting for you…(I actually just had someone come to my desk waiting for me to look up as I wrote this.) Isn’t this what we all are yearning for? Just some space? Some physical space away from all the concrete, glass and steel? From what I hear from people, the answer is definitively a yes.

Here’s the connection again. This is exactly the same thing we all need and want in our personal lives. Some space. Some breathing room from the hamster wheel. Now more than ever, many of us want relief from the mountains of debt and bills that were generated from our excesses of the past several years, decade or decades. Like I wrote before, I don’t believe in coincidences. It’s no coincidence that what we yearn for in our physical environment is the same thing we yearn for in our personal lives. And so it’s no coincidence that that what our business and work environments need and yearn for is also space, peace, quiet, less rather than more etc. This is where I see the direct tie-in between the Green Environment Movement and what I call the Green Mindset Movement. This movement is also needed in the work place. It’s a “greenification” of the unworkable – and in a sense unnatural systems and structures that led us to where our businesses and economy is today.

In my next post, I’ll give you an example of how this plays out in my business. Let me know what you think of this. Thanks

Entry Filed under: Digital Onion News, Green Mindset, The Point Man System