Spirit Moxie is now 10 years old, and many of the ideas we introduced in 2013 have become commonplace. Our central concept focuses on the power of positive change, but when we look around, it feels as if, rather than becoming more positive, the world has become darker: politics uglier, the environment more fragile, people less connected, and information and news increasingly unreliable. We have the tools to correct this. There are actions and mindsets to help prevent these problems! So why do they still exist?
First of all, even though we cheer the idea of change, we are programmed to resist it. Perhaps it’s stating the obvious, but our brains are wired for survival. However “wrong” or uncomfortable conditions are, if we didn’t die during any of what has happened or through our personal actions or experiences, our brain view the status quo safe. Note: you didn’t die. I know this because you’re reading this. So while this may sound simplistic, even though change might sound good, we naturally resist it.
Quite apart from what we consider positive action, this orientation shows up in everything from not brushing our teeth as often as we should to forgetting to put on our seatbelt to not using the gym. Often it isn’t a case of will power or remembering, but just a result of our having done just fine in the past. Why risk something different?
An extension of this reason to resist change is that change can be threatening. Change, by definition, means that things will be different. It takes us to unknown places.
What’s interesting is that we seldom consciously see any of this. Let’s consider a few more of our default places when our actions and possible change collide. First we really like ease. There are different versions of ease for different people, but if rinsing out the bottle so it can be safely recycled isn’t your norm, it is much easier to just throw the bottle in the trash. For some people. it is easier to drop something onto the ground than to walk two feet to the trash can. We might deplore waste yet never bring our own reusable bags to the store. I’m pretty sure most of these are United States examples, but these instances of ease involve anything that you’ve always done.Why should you change? It’s more comfortable to keep doing what you always have done? What examples can you see others doing? We usually don’t see them when we do them ourselves.
The flip side of this is that many of us are programmed to think that something can’t be effective unless it is difficult. Spirit Moxie talks about doing “little things to change the world.” What’s dramatic or sexy about those as actions? Many of us figure that unless we’re curing world hunger, negotiating for peace, and evening out the economy on a national level, it isn’t worth talking about. If getting up at 5 am to get more done is a sign of being pro active, a little thing called “sleep*,” which we say here is one of the things that changes the world, can be completely discounted. This might be a bit of hyperbole, but for example, while I celebrate (in my mind) every time a server in a restaurant doesn’t give me a straw, my son rolls his eyes and discounts it. Why should something that little matter?
Something else that almost certainly hinders change is our excessive attention to what isn’t working. One of the best and most insidious example is our constant preoccupation with the media. There’s an apparently common belief that binge watching the news makes us accountable. I’m not talking about being informed. But hours of casual attention gives energy to much we don’t want to fuel. Balance this. When the media hungry are not being fed (watched and interacted with), it is increasing hard to justify the expense of giving them free publicity. Plus for many people, whether within the news, the neighborhood, the environment, or their friends and family, whatever isn’t working is their preferred topic of conversation. Why Joe and Mary are having a hard time because Sue is into drugs is seen as much more intense and interesting than that Sam got a Fulbright. Lamenting political options is more important than really engaging in helpful responses to issues. Etc.
Finally, when we know something is true, we don’t question it. Usually we can’t even see an alternative. But if in fact, a contrasting fact or varying viewpoint is even hinted about, and we do hear it, we certainly don’t weigh it and are often offended that anyone could be that blind, inconsiderate, stupid, or, to be honest, wrong. This eliminates positive change by default. We extend this to how we evaluate change. At some level, we could very easily be using artificial markers or evaluating their implications incorrectly. Is 20 people at the bus stop with bags of food from the Saturday free food program hosted near my house a sign of poverty, of the need for redistribution of resources, of people taking advantage of others, or of hope for better nutrition in the city? If one of those is your truth, that is what you see. If all those are new, you probably thought “of course.” And you almost certainly can come up with others I haven’t considered. A final part of this is to remember that, with the internet, falsehoods enter this mix and are received as unquestioned truth almost instantly.
So we’re wired for the security of our history, for perceived safety, for ease and the validation of hard work, and by our personal understanding of things, however we came by them. When positive change is happening, both globally and even personally, we quite possibly may simply not notice.
For Spirit Moxie, the force that makes positive change possible is an understanding of chaos. Remember that whenever you dare do a little thing to change the world, and others do too, you begin creating conditions where larger, almost certainly unexpected, change becomes possible. So reread where we began.
Meanwhile hold, however lightly, that perhaps there is positive energy. That change is possible. And that you make a difference!
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Butterfly – picture by Spirit Moxie (or at least it was in our photos!)
*”Sleep” is included in Moxie Moves:10 easy ways to make a powerful difference – (Cincinnati: Spirit Moxie, 2019) -Amazon link