It’s no one’s fault. And it’s everyone’s responsibility.
It’s been an overwhelming start to 2023 for many across the world. In Aotearoa New Zealand, the devastating effects of cyclone Gabrielle have been declared on par with the aftermath of the 2011 Christchurch earthquakes. It’s been heart-breaking to witness the trauma and the loss people and communities are experiencing, just a couple of hundreds of kilometres away from Pōneke (Wellington) where I live. I am feeling overwhelmed by the chaos and by the state of the world that seems to be collapsing around us all, although I am not even affected by it directly or personally. Not just yet.
When I heard our Prime Minister describe the Government’s plans in response to the flooding events, using language such as ‘crisis management’, ‘crisis relief’, ‘recovery’ and ‘rebuilt’, it struck me the extent to which such terminology may become ingrained in our children’s lives. Man-made crises are an integral part of human history, and the cycle of crises followed by periods of recovery is nothing new. But the climate crisis is adding another unprecedented layer to the human and natural disasters that humankind has a lot (almost everything) to answer for. The pace and the frequency of crises in one given community is about to accelerate very rapidly. I look at my two daughters and reflect on how resilient they can be — and it gives me some hope. Will adversity and uncertainty be part of a new normality for their generation?
This leaves me feeling a little mad, and highly motivated. Motivated to play my part in rebuilding differently and finding pathways towards a better future. Our current systems and structures aren’t coping. They’re not fit for purpose. It’s blatantly obvious, no need to explain or illustrate these points here again. Our physical infrastructure is in desperate need of more rapid innovation. Our social infrastructure needs to be thought about in a whole different light. Our social fabric, our sense of community and our collective agency, that got thinner and thinner through eight decades of consumerism and individualism, is now one of our key strengths in the face of adversity and uncertainty. To revive the social fabric, we need to reform and reinvent our institutions and infrastructures with the aim to create the conditions and pathways for our communities to self-organise and rebuild their emotional, cultural and economic resilience. These new, fit-for-purpose institutions and infrastructures will only truly function if they are grounded in a whole new values system — in other words, if we change the story of self, the story we tell ourselves of who we are as human beings and how we should relate to each other and to society. (This is one of the core ideas behind Jon Alexander’s book ‘Citizens’ which I highly recommend.)
The scale and depth of the transformation we need is enormous. Future-proofing our physical infrastructure, reinventing our social infrastructure, and shifting our values system, is clearly no small feat. This is going to be the work of generations. So what difference can I make in my lifetime? What can I contribute? There are two key drivers that underpin the work I do.
The first driver is to find ways to bridge systems thinking and place-based impact. I often refer to the ‘mental dance’ we need to make between system transformation mindset and on-the-ground practice — in other words between big picture thinking and practical action. This little dance is necessary because on the one hand we need to understand the wider systems we operate in (current state) and what needs to change (future, desirable state), and on the other hand we need to be able to cut through the complexity and focus on practical ways we can act to shift the dial. The mental dance of going back and forth between the two dimensions is also an effective antidote to feeling overwhelmed and paralysed by the scale of the challenges we face, and an effective way to cultivate a sense of agency so we feel ready to act and to make a dent in these very challenges.
The second driver is to change the narrative. The systems we have created are now holding most of us prisoners. Prisoners of a world view and prisoners of a story of who we are as human beings — a story that has profoundly damaged the equilibrium of life on earth. I see it all around me, every day. I see it in close friends of mine who I studied with. They have done exactly what was expected of them with a business management master’s degree in hand: they went up the ladder in one of many powerful corporations somewhere in the world. We graduated about 20 years ago, so many of my peers would now be getting near the upper management level of large corporations. I see it in members of my extended family who, despite living in one of the communities directly affected by the floods, still seem to think there’s not much they can do about climate change. Does it feel like a punch in the gut? Most definitely. Should I be surprised? Probably not. As baby boomers, their whole life has been framed by the ‘Consumers story’ (another reference to ‘Citizens’): the belief that steady growth was the best way to avoid worldwide conflicts, the promise of financial freedom as the pathway to social status, endless choices and a fulfilled life. Until recently, this is the only narrative they’ve ever known and ever heard. This is the narrative that defines their version of a life well lived. So no, I shouldn’t be surprised.
There’s a lot to be undone, and there’s more to be fixed than we can ever dream to fix. Fixing is no longer an option, so we need to shift radically, we need to transform ourselves. Thankfully we’re not starting from a blank canvas and this transformation can start from within, from looking inward and reassessing our true nature. If we let go of the expectations, the filters and the superfluous social norms that restrict us, and if we do a bit of introspection work, we’ll find that we are intrinsically creative, caring, collaborative creatures who are capable of acting for the greater good.
Our world is messy. It’s no one’s fault, and it’s everyone’s responsibility. So to all of you my friends who are feeling overwhelmed, slightly mad, highly motivated and crazily determined — let’s make 2023 a year that takes us one step closer to better futures for generations to come.
