What is mine to do?
A guiding compass in living a harmonious life.
I feel like I have to do everything and I’m doing everything wrong.
Like I am doing more bad things than good things. Like I don’t have the resilience, the confidence or the power to make the big changes I need to do, and anything less than this feels like an excuse.
Nothing feels clear and I don’t know what's right or what's wrong, anymore.
I feel guilty every time a piece of plastic enters my life but I feel powerless to stop it. Like if I really had the gall to actually do good things I would, but I don't. I don’t care enough because I don’t make the extra long trip to the zero waste shop when Sainburys is right there. Like I'm lazy for not cooking seasonally. Like my morality isn’t strong enough when I cave in and buy a nice piece of fast-fashion clothing.
Simultaneously I feel powerless.
Powerless when 100 corporations are the source of 70% of global emissions. When governments approve more mining of oil reserves and more clearcutting of forests. When we can see clothes waste from space. When my vote doesn’t make an iota of difference. When my MP doesn’t email me back. When Amazon ships 1.6 million packages per day.
→ Except 100 of these corporations aren’t producing goods no one has an appetite for, somebody is buying them. (it’s me! it's you! we’re somebody!)
→ Except ethical items are sometimes so eye-wateringly expensive it feels we have no other option.
→ Except we drive around in cars powered by fuels that are killing our planet.
→ Except we live in a system that makes it near possible not to pollute.
And on, and on, and on. It’s enough to drive anyone insane.
The question that’s kept me going recently: What is mine to do?
I’ve danced with this concept before, believing we should pick our battles when it comes to doing better, but this feels like it takes the concept a step further. I came across it in a book I’ve mentioned a lot recently: Life After Doom. Brian writes “I do not know for certain whether our current doom trajectory can be changed with courage, or if it should be accepted with serenity. I do not yet have that wisdom. The only thing I know is that I want to set a moral course for myself, without judging others if they take another course. So then the question becomes personal: what is mine to do?” (emphasis mine)
What I love about this saying is that it flexes with your capacities, and your energy levels. When you’re feeling spacious, ready to take on more, it allows for your expansion. If you’re burnt out, exhausted, or just about ready to throw the towel in, it contracts, allowing you some breathing room as you deal with the other issues on your plate.
If I refer back to last week’s post, I am re-framing these good changes as life improvements, as steps forward for a better life. Rather than see every change as an uphill battle that will leave my life worse off if I don’t conquer it; asking myself ‘what is mine’ to do in that month, week, day, or even moment, brings these efforts back into my reality
‘What is mine to do’ is a guiding compass–a moral compass–in living a harmonious life in the midst of the current craziness. It brings life back into my own sphere of influence and sends ripples waves out in so many unimaginable ways.
P.S. If you enjoy my writing, you can buy me a coffee to fuel my work.
Waves from pebbles. We *can* do that. I like putting a word in *stars*. :)
I just went back to the Gen Dread archive to comment on Kate Schapira’s fabulous book – to Kate – before our CC meeting here for July.
I ‘met’ you a year ago ID:
“We don’t need to be hopeful or hopeless, we just need to be. We will do things out of love, and we will do things out of fear, but as long as with each step we take we slowly weave a new world, then that might just be enough.”
I was travelling for work and made a conscious decision that day to stop being resolved to thinking 'ya’ll will fix it'. I was considering bowing out. Maybe my first real ‘bout of overwhelm’. I also got written approval to present Britt’s work – the work quoted in your Gen Dread post – that summer. Remarkable for me to reflect on.
It’s so hard to move the needle. I know now we can move it together. And we are, collectively. I know you now. You chase tears <see pen dancing across page here> away. Thank you.
PS You’re in the ‘most popular’ bar on Gen Dread. <3
PPS Back to work!
I love this concept! Being a mom, I can't always be the grand activist I wish I could be, but there are certainly things that are mine to do in being a parent that also help the planet.