Just Shine

As people around the world begin to wake up and commit to help build a sustainable, peaceful and just world the single most-often asked question is “So what should I do?”  Answering this head on is to fall into a trap, because helpful as it seems to offer suggestions this immediately limits folk from using the full range of their own creativity and individuality.

The compromise I chose in writing Your Planet Needs You was to point out some key principles which can steer us, but still offer plenty of scope for interpretation; one of these is the subject of this post, Just Shine.  Here’s an extract from the book

What a wonderful force of positive energy we are in the world.  We already know the power of positive thoughts when we are optimistic, helpful and encouraging to others; we know how good this makes others feel.

So every day is a chance to shine and to see this light reflect back in other people

Just Shine starts with being constructive, always finding the good in people and situations, however difficult this might be.  It means celebrating Possibility as well as Success; it means the glass is half-full

Just Shine is role modeling the good humour, kindness and courtesy that we enjoy so much in other people

Just Shine means being a source of love and encouragement in the world, leaving others feeling better than you found them

Imagine how far the ripple spreads when you smile or show a simple kindness to someone else.  Imagine a room chock-full of smiles, a town brimful of kindness or a world overflowing with love.  Isn’t that the Future Worth Choosing?

I know the power of a smile, no-one I know practices smiling better than my wonderful wife, Sand and I get to constantly see the effect that oh-so-simple gesture has on people.  So gather yourself, be prepared for people to assume you are i) on drugs, ii) in love or iii) not from round here, and go for it.  Just shine.

Traveler’s Dilemma

So I’ve just returned from a month long,4-country trip taking the Awakening the Dreamer message around South East Asia.  The results are new or enlarged communities of active citizens committed to amplifying this message in Hong Kong, China, Malaysia and the Philippines.  The further ripples from these same folk are already being felt in South Africa, India, Singapore and doubtless other places too.  In the context of our work, awakening the citizens of the world as a an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilled and socially just human presence, this seems quite a result.  But there is always a cost to consider in this, the cost of all this travel.

For the flights alone I have caused 4.41 tonnes of carbon dioxide to be emitted into the upper atmosphere through my 19 866 miles of flying. There are several ways to look at this; one is to consider what an annual carbon ration would be per person, and estimates here are mostly in the range 1.5 – 3.0 tonnes per person – yikes.  Another view posits that if we are to collectively emit no more than 250 billion tonnes of carbon in order to reduce the probability of a 2 °C warming to 25 per cent, then for today’s population we each have only 36 tonnes left that we can ever emit . . . ever!  So I’ve used up 12.25% of my lifetime’s carbon ration in just this one trip.

A couple of questions remain

Is this justifiable? There is no way to answer this objectively, we can only weigh the balance between the value to our long-term future of this process of awakening and linking active citizens and the environmental cost of so doing.  What do you reckon?

Can I offset this environmental damage? Yes is the answer.  In fact one of my flights has already been off-set as a generous donation by Gregers Reimann in Kuala Lumpur – thanks Gregers.  And the work of the Pachamama Alliance helps to preserve nearly 2 million acres of pristine tropical rainforest, a valuable carbon sink as well as the forest home to the Achuar people.

Today as we are ever more acutely aware of the health of our planet home any active that isn’t directly restorative to the environment can be called raise questions for which there are no easy answers. I’ll leave the last words to Seize the Day, a radical British folk band . . . . . and to you, what would you do?

I’m Done with Gillette

Another step toward living sustainably, I’m done with disposable razors.

Here’s why . . . .

• having seen the enormous amount of money poured into persuading guys to upgrade their shaving experience, “have you tried the new Quattro experience“
• having even tried this 4-blade extravaganza and finding it didn’t make me look any more like David Beckham than when I started
• having clocked that the whole plastic-and-metal thing is certainly not recyclable
• knowing that the manufacturers are using the principle of planned obsolescence, making blades that will dull instead of longer-lasting alternatives
• knowing its up to me to vote with my dollar . . . .

I decided it was time to change, out went the old razors, in came a cut-throat razor and a good deal of careful learning.

OK, it isn’t as quick (I’m not trying this in the shower!!), and it requires a bit more gubbins (figure on a brush, strop and maybe even a block to keep the blade sharp).  And I am still at the stage where I’m nicking myself a little each time I shave but the satisfaction can’t be beaten and the shave is smooth and lovely (my gorgeous wife Sand says so).

Chalk another one up for the simple life.

The Great Recycle

When Sand and I moved to the USA we set ourselves a Challenge: to equip our new home without using the transaction of money and for ALL ‘gifts’ to be given to us with intention and love.

Could it be done?

The answer was – for sure

We built a wonderful new home together in our rented apartment, a haven of love and peace, a grand experiment in recycling and all for $0.00. We proved that there is enough spare and unwanted “stuff” out there already to equip a home, many times over, and enough love and generosity to supply everything we needed.  What’s more we learned invaluable lessons about simplicity, the differnce between our wants and our needs, and about what really counts in a home, and in a life.

As we left the  UK  to move to the States we  were  able to  recycle the largest part of all our worldy goods (2 homes full of ’stuff’ which had been collected for over 40 years) to a variety of good causes;
Oxfam got around 1000 books to sell, the Salvation Army were able to help a bunch of families with hundreds of items of kitchen equipment and household goods – they even got a beautiful full range of office furniture – for their new offices! A lovely young family down on their luck got a pair of bunk beds, bedding and boxes of ’stuff’, Save the Children are selling pictures, dozens of ornaments, lamps, clothes, coats, jackets, jewellery, 60 neckties no longer required and a dozen or more pairs of shoes which were hardly worn, the Shelter for the Homeless received duvets, bedding, sheets, towels and a whole pile of coats, shirts and trousers to keep their customers warm through the winter.  Our local Youth Club received a garden table and benches and a dozen boxes of household ’stuff’ to sell and raise funds for the wonderful work they do for their young people. The family that moved into our UK home even got a new vacuum – it was the very last thing we had to give away – and theirs had broken that very morning!

And then according to the universal law of flow we acquired beds and sheets, dishes and pots and pans, bikes and books and rugs and tables and chairs – everything we needed and more.  The Great Recycle Experiment was a complete success, a great joy and a deep learning.