Sustainability is Holding Hands

Sustainability starts in ordinary life, in the human environment we create with our words, habits, and daily choices. When people feel supported instead of abandoned, connected instead of isolated, communities become more resilient, and that resilience is every bit as real as any policy.  

Transcript

Welcome And A Different Definition

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Hello, my name is Todd Francis. Welcome to the It Sustainability Time podcast. Where we endeavor to challenge reality, where we are rebelling, not through passive resistance, but through making contact with those forces that say this is as good as it gets. Don't expect more. Two weeks of vacation is just fine. So take out your sustainable beings and think about today all of the things that are sustainable that may be hiding in plain sight. People hear the word sustainability and we often think about large systems. We think of energy policy, climate change, corporate responsibility, government regulations. Those are all important discussions. But is this where sustainability begins? I think we overlook where it does. It begins much closer to home. Sustainability begins in ordinary life. We're encouraged to focus on the large and dramatic, the next election, the next crisis, the next technological breakthrough, the next big story. But the most important things taking place in our lives are so ordinary. The most important things, the sustainable things are taking place in our lives, they're so ordinary and we barely notice them. A conversation is sustainable.

Ordinary Acts That Sustain Us

SPEAKER_01 1:53

A friendship is sustainable. A family meal is sustainable. A neighbor helping a neighbor is sustainable. A community gathering. Local business owners greeting regular customers. Volunteers the volunteers showing up week after week, those are sustainable activities. A person checking in on someone who may be struggling. These moments they don't make the news, yet they're helping create the conditions that allow healthy communities exist. We underestimate how much our words, habits, and actions contribute to the environment in which we live. Not the natural environment, but the human environment, the human environment, the social environment, our emotional environment, our emotional environment, most important environment of all. It's the environment where it's the environment it's the environment that determines whether people feel connected or isolated and how much. Supported or abandoned, valued or ignored, capable or overwhelmed. So helping an older neighbor shovel snow after a storm is a great example. Most people would call that simply an act of kindness, which it is, but perhaps it's something more. It strengthens us, it strengthens trust, it encourages mutual aid, it builds familiarity, it demonstrates compassion, it reinforces the idea that we are connected to one another. Now this act of helping someone may take just an hour, yet the effects are going to last much longer than that. And the same can be said for many of the ordinary things that we do having lunch at a local diner, attending a community event, joining a conversation group, volunteering, supporting fundraisers, coaching a youth sports team. Don't yell at those poor kids, please. Checking in on a friend. The actions may appear small, but societies are not built on large institutions. They're built through millions of everyday interactions between people.

Noticing Value And Building Community

SPEAKER_01 4:40

And the most important thing that we can do to achieve sustainability or to get the ball rolling is to become more conscious of these interactions. People begin to reinforce what they notice. What we think of as being vital. If we recognize our good actions, we may begin to value them a little bit differently. We'll begin to give them greater value if we understand their meaning to community. If we value them more, then stands the reason that we may participate in them more often. If we participate more often, we may be creating stronger communities. If we participate more often, we may be creating stronger communities. And if stronger communities emerge, we may begin to understand sustainability in a very different way. Not as policy, not as regulation, not as a political identity, but as a lived experience, something that we are involved in every day, something that we invest in every day. Sustainability as a way of relating to each other. Sustainability as a way of participating in the places where we live. So perhaps sustainability is not something we build. It's also something that we learn to recognize. So do it. Sustainable environments already exist around us. They appear wherever people cooperate, wherever people participate, wherever people contribute, where we all create conditions that support the well-being of others.

The Questions That Change Expectations

SPEAKER_01 6:43

When we begin to recognize these environments, we'll begin to ask ourselves the important questions, the new ones. Does this activity strengthen my community? Does this behavior contribute to trust? Does this environment help people flourish? They could be part of our new thinking. They could become part of our collective sustainable mind. Does this institution support resilience? Does this decision improve the lives of future generations, most important of all? These are all sustainability questions. Do all of these actions support a better environment? And we can ask these questions anywhere. We can ask them at work. We can ask them at home. We can ask them in small businesses. We can ask them in schools, in government, neighborhoods, relationships. As our awareness grows, something interesting may happen. See, our expectation our expectations may begin to change. We'll expect sustainability. We'll expect sustainable actions amongst each other. We may come to expect more from ourselves, more from our institutions. Not because someone told us, not because a policy required it, but because we have developed a clearer understanding of what healthy environments look like. What resilient environments look like, what sustainable environments look like. People are searching for an understanding right now. Not because they want a better political argument. Not because they want another ideological battle. Because they want healthier communities, they want stronger relationships. We want better communities. We want stronger relationships. We don't want another ideological battle. We don't know better, we do not want better political arguments. We want stronger relationships. We want greater purpose. We want better connection. We want to know that there's more there is a more resilient human environment around us. We want a better future for the people who come after us. We must be privately depressed. So perhaps sustainability begins with recognizing that the ordinary moments of life are not as ordinary as they seem. The conversations, the friendships, the act of kindness, the acts of kindness, the participation, the cooperation, our willingness to contribute. These things might not solve every problem, but they help create the kind of society capable of solving problems that may, and that may be the most important sustainability lesson we can learn.

Closing From The Connecticut Shoreline

SPEAKER_01 9:55

I'm here at the Connecticut Shoreline saying hello to you. Hope things are well. Lovely day here. Summer is upon us. Long Island Sound across the bay, 10 miles away. Hope things are well with you. Take care, and we'll see you next time.