Earth Day Success?

What do you think the people who started the first Earth Day would have thought about our celebration and work yesterday and about the progress we’ve made in regards to caring for our Earth? After all it’s been over 50 years now since that first Earth Day and there’s a ton that can (and did!) happen in 50 years. We now have cell phones and internet, we have planes and trains that go super fast, we’ve learned so much about science and medicine, we’ve worked through another world-wide health crisis, the music and entertainment world continues to thrive and captivate, and we’ve raised a ton of money for really awesome causes. But what about our planet? How well have we used those 50+ years and 50+ Earth Days?

On one level I think the founders of Earth Day would be disappointed. Most people could tell you that there’s more that could and should be done on a regular basis to better manage our resources and give more consideration to the future of our planet and quality of life for future generations. They thought things were serious 50+ years ago and they shared that message and clearly we didn’t pick up on it to the degree that we should have because if we had maybe our world would be a different place in terms of some of the climate related issues we have like flooding and air pollution. So yes, I do expect that they would be frustrated and disappointed with us.

But on the other hand I think they would be proud that Earth Day is still something that people get involved in each year, that it has become a much more global and recognized event than it was when it was started. I think they would be proud of all the people who have brought cases to court to fight polluters and make responsible parties pay for damage they’ve caused to our planet. They would be proud of all the creative technology and resources that we’re trying to get a better handle on what we use and how we dispose of what we use. And most of all I think they would be proud that more people are involved in caring for our planet in between Earth Days. We may not have successfully saved the planet for future generations yet, but we haven’t given up and more people are making an effort on a daily basis to both care for our planet and enjoy it. What steps have you done to help care for and show love to our planet?

Out with the Family for Earth Day

I love technology. I love being able to get information with a few clicks, read a new book with a few clicks, take a picture that’s decent with something that’s with you all the time (your phone) and not need a separate camera, communicate with people halfway around the world at any point in time, get almost instant updates about things going on around the world and in our neighborhoods, and being able to connect with people who “speak my language” whether that’s an actual language or a love of books or a game or Superman or minor league baseball.

And in some way I love that technology makes us work harder to be one with nature and connect with the world around us. Most adults grew up spending their time outdoors because that’s really all we had for entertainment and that’s where most of us gathered with friends when we weren’t doing homework or working after school jobs. These days kids reach for their phones, are watching lots of videos, play online games and maybe make videos hoping to become an influencer or trend. Yet every parent I’ve talked with loves technology for the support it gives busy parents, and hate it at the same time because kids often think the natural world is “boring” (or adjacent to how many of us felt about museums growing up) compared to technology.

So Earth Day is one of those opportunities to drag our kids out into the world and see what’s beyond their screens that they really can’t protest because everyone is involved. As for other days? I think the biggest secret to getting kids more into the outdoor world is balance. Let them have their time with screens and other days with outdoor time. Go on road trips so they can have some tech time as you drive while also having to explore new places. Maybe even get them a dog or another animal that’s outdoor-centric like a bunny or chickens and give them a reason to be outside and enjoy it. And of course, the more you get outside the more they’ll understand it’s normal to be outdoors and love to be active and explore too. What outdoor things do you love doing with family?

Focusing on the Sunshine

In recent conversations with clients who are parents I’ve been hearing a lot of frustration about how they think they’re letting their kids down or aren’t being enough for them or are a terrible parent, none of which is the truth. Are there bad parents out there? Of course. Can most of us do better in one way or another? Of course. But many parents do the best they can as often as they can, and as long as their kids are loved (and know they’re loved), clothed, learning and growing, fed, sheltered and given attention, they shouldn’t feel as guilty as they sometimes do.

Walt Whitman said: “Keep your face always toward the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you.” Walt’s wisdom here is not that the shadows don’t exist or that you’re hiding from them, but that you are more focused on the sun than the shadows. Because sometimes we do have cloudy days, sometimes the weather does ruin our plans, sometimes it seems like Mother Nature is out to get us, and when those things happen we need the reminder of the sunshine that it’s still there and won’t be gone forever. I couldn’t live in a place that got very little sunshine throughout the year, I need that reassurance and reminder to keep my focus on the sunshine and not the shadows, clouds or other challenges.

Should you notice the things that you want to do better on? Yes, of course, because no one really wants a miserable life and the best way to make sure your life trends towards the positive and not the negative is by paying attention to what isn’t working well for you or what makes you unhappy. But you also need to pay attention to whether it’s a habitual issue or something that’s very short term and soon things will return to a more normal life, because one is something you work through to the best of your ability while the other is something that you should consider addressing and changing.

So as we start this new year I encourage you to consider if you’re really spreading shadows in your family as a parent or if you’ve simply gotten distracted by the shadows and need to refocus on the sunshine. And don’t forget that even on the sunny days there are the occasional clouds in the sky and I know many of us enjoy a fast-and-furious summer rainstorm that clears away some of the humidity, so don’t worry if perfection is alluding you (and don’t aim for it in the first place). Stay focused on loving your family and being the best parent you can.

A Family That Explores Together…

Recently I was talking with someone about a public figure who had appeared in the news for not-so-great reasons and while they weren’t making fun of the person, I could tell they definitely didn’t think very highly of them. So I jokingly said that the public figure must have followed the old saying ‘go big or go home,’ which the other person I was chatting with thought was hilarious. But in the weeks since that conversation I’ve been thinking more about what it means to “go big” and that we should dig in and dig deeper more often in our lives. Yes, status quo and consistency and maintaining is great (certainly better than loss or any of its relatives), yes it’s fun to sprinkle in some brief changes and challenges from time to time to keep us on our toes and keep the boredom away, but there’s so much more depth and magic to life that we can miss out on if we aren’t intentional about letting those experiences into our lives from time to time.

For example I love dogs and know they’re amazing animals, but if you never go to a zoo, if you never watch nature documentaries, if you never take any time to learn about the other creatures that we share this planet with, you’re missing out on a ton of creative, unique, smart, beautiful and dedicated animals. I’m not saying you have to become an animal expert, or an expert on any (or every!) topic out there, because that’s just not possible. But what I am saying is that it’s important to remind yourself, and teach your kids, that there’s a wide world out there that deserves respect (because some of it is really powerful and dangerous) and exploring and enjoying it should be a regular part of your lives.

As we immerse ourselves in the season of Autumn, I’m reminded that it’s a great time to do some exploring locally and discover some of the cool things that are in your local area (or state) because of the change in weather and schedules. Maybe you want to take on something you’ve always been curious about or something that’s a bit of a local mystery. Maybe you want to try something that’s a little scary or intimidating to you like doing an overnight hike or learning SCUBA or to learn metalworking. The younger you can start your kids on getting them excited about this world that we all share, the better. Why? Because some of the most intelligent people I know are those who are the most curious and continue to explore and learn about this world that we all share, and the early experiences they had as a child learning and exploring are where it all started for them.

What fun adventures will you go on this autumn and what part of the world have you been exploring that’s really opened your eyes recently?

Team Earth (Day)

The word that I’ve been coming back to time and again when I’ve thought about this year’s Earth Day is teamwork. It’s really the choice we’ll have to make if we want to save our planet from the possibility of the dire warnings scientists are making about what the future could look like. And what better example to illustrate the topic of teamwork than professional sports like basketball, baseball, hockey, football, and soccer. They have the players who are out there doing their thing, they’ve got the umpires who are supposed to be team neutral while making sure everyone follows the rules, the people who train and coach the players, the people who own the team, the people who manage the stadium, the people who make the balls and other gear, and of course the fans who watch and attend games. In one way or another all of those people are part of the team, whether they realize it or not. The “team” isn’t just the people on the field, it’s everyone who makes the game possible.

And while it’s highly unlikely that a fan would some day be on the field with the team playing along, the same isn’t true about the other areas of our lives that we’re part of a team in. Sometimes we’ll be the player on the field, sometimes we’ll be in the stadium, sometimes we’ll be the responsible owners, sometimes we’ll be the umpires, it depends on the situation and often changes so rarely are we always on the sidelines or always playing on the field or whatever position of the team you think of. Sometimes it’s about who is on location, who has the money, or who has the knowledge, but other times it’s not about anything except who steps up to put in the effort.

Earth Day is one of those days that how we step up may change over the years. As kids we may be dropping a few seeds in the ground to give the bees flowers or helping plant an Arbor Day tree on the grounds of our school, but the same could be true for adults or even seniors. Some years you may not “do” anything to help our Earth on Earth Day like plant or pick up garbage, but you may get out there and enjoy nature to be reminded why Earth Day is important. And other years you’ll be in a position to really make very Earth-conscious choices about your resources and buy products or services that have a better footprint on our planet or support organizations that are caring for our planet or undoing some of the damage that has been done over the years.

By the very fact that you’re living on this planet, you’re part of the team that must choose to either save it or lose it. You don’t have a choice in that since you’re here and space travel and life isn’t an option yet. So what team are you on this Earth Day, and what team are you teaching your kids to belong to this Earth Day?

The Bigger Picture of Earth Day

With Earth Day at the end of this week of course I’m thinking about all things nature, but a very influential part of nature is us: the humans. I don’t know what the world would look like if we had continued more along the lines of how Columbus and other people who reached the New World found that Native Americans lived, and still live, with such great respect for and in such careful relationship with nature, but as is true for so many aspects of our lives, we can’t go back, we can only go forward. But along with the reminder to enjoy the natural world, Earth Day is a reminder of why we have been having so many discussions especially of late and have raised such alarm bells over the natural world in recent decades: because we want a planet to be here for future generations.

Earth Day is really part of a larger discussion about being the best planet and people we can be. Why do we send our kids to school? Because we know that being educated gives you a better shot at having a good life that can support you and your kids or others you may love. We also know that if we want something different than what we currently have we have to do something about it, and usually that means gaining knowledge, trying new things and making new connections. If we didn’t work on improving ourselves and our lives we could still be living in conditions so unhealthy and unsanitary that we read about throughout history that caused people to die really young, and for childbirth to be incredibly risky and often deadly for mom and/or baby.

Earth Day is an opportunity for all of us to remember that we share this planet with our fellow humans, and as the parts of nature that are really on top of the pyramid as to having the most influence over everything, we’re in the position to be responsible and make sure that nature’s balance not only exists but is cared for in such a way that we do have a healthy planet that will exist for many generations to come, both human and of nature. So even if you don’t consider yourself to be a tree hugger, let Earth Day be an opportunity for you to reflect on what would make the planet you live on a better place to live for your children and great grand children.

Making Time for Nature

One of the things I love most about summer is how free we are to explore the world. Yes, of course we have to be mindful of heat exhaustion and sunburns but the ability to basically throw on pans/shorts and a shirt and grab some drinks and snacks and get out there and do stuff is one of the reasons summer is my favorite season. Yes, in spring and autumn you can do the same, but there’s always the cold to consider then as the water hasn’t warmed up yet or there could be early snowfalls, which is why I remain steadfast in my love of summer.

Summer is also the time that so many of us have more freedom in our schedules, whether that’s because our companies give us more flexibility about our schedules or the kids are off from school so we make the time, so it seems easier and even almost required that we get out there and live a little more. And even with all the places we go, as stressful as vacations can be (even though we’re supposed to be more relaxed because of them), and things we do that are so different from our normal, I still think we’re less stressed and healthier emotionally and physically when September rolls around than we would be if we didn’t take whatever our version of a break is in the summer.

As I watched the first, very early, leaves of autumn drop to the ground this week and saw all the back to school ads everywhere, one of the themes that has been running through my heart is that we need to commit to doing better when September rolls around and things get pushed back into that faster, busier pace. Even if we make a practice of continuing our morning/evening walks, keep taking the dog to the dog park a couple of nights a week, commit to at least one weekend a month of doing new and/or active things within a couple hours’ drive of our home, or continuing to have a beverage outside on the porch/deck with our partner at the end of the day, I think it’s really important that we make fresh air, time in nature and changes of scenery part of our regular life activities as long as physically possible (don’t get frostbite or have to build an igloo just to have that outdoor time). I’m excited to discover the difference in my physical and mental health after the autumn as I incorporate this focus into my life. Are you planning to make it a point to include outdoor time in your autumn?

“It’s amazing the difference A bit of sky can make.” Shel Silverstein

Enjoy Our World

Growing up I spent a ton of time outside. Yes we had TV and some computer access back then, but nothing like what we have today. If I wasn’t bike riding or playing in the back yard, I was reading outside. Both of my parents are and one of my grandmothers was huge gardeners (I didn’t get quite the same green thumb although I do try), so of course there was lots of gardening and exploring of the natural world too. It was a huge help to have family members who were so passionate about our natural world, without their influence I’m sure I would have some respect for nature but probably not the same perspective or interest. It also helped that schools were going through a phase when they really encouraged and focused on getting kids outside whenever possible too when I was a kid.

One of the things I wrote about in other blogs and newsletters this week was how important it is to save the planet, yes, but at the same time we need to do a better job of showcasing, highlighting, exploring and celebrating all the cool things that we’re fighting to save. Visiting a zoo, hiking in national parks, pursuing a photography hobby, watching live animal cameras, reading nature books from the library, taking part in a community garden, watching nature documentaries, planting an indoor or outdoor garden, and even cooking with a variety of fresh vegetables are all ways to get to know the world that we’re trying to save and all the cool creatures, plants and natural locations that are worth saving (I know the idea of zoos has gotten a bad rap over the years, but many of them these days are actually a significant part of the conservation efforts around the world).

This all goes back to the discussion we had last weekend about tough questions kids ask. They want to know why we do certain things or why we talk about “saving the planet” and “climate change,” and it can be hard to give answers to those questions that aren’t vague or concepts or influenced by ‘many years’ (which is a really long time in kid years). But when you present them with these creatures they can see with their own eyes and watch how they live, these plants they can touch and work personally on growing, the foods they can see how they go from seed to plant to table, it changes the question from “why…” or “what do you mean…” to “how can I help?” and “how soon can we do that again?”

Maybe that’s the attitude adjustment we need as adults too: that rather than facing and focusing on consequences for all these things, we could have more freedom and opportunities and a healthier relationship between us and our present and future on this planet. We don’t have to conquer the mountain of the care for the earth in one day or one fell swoop, it’s through little changes that most of us can make a positive impact not only on the planet but our lives as well. And it’s through those same little things that can help us teach our kids to both love the earth and care for it for their future and their kid’s future. What are your family’s favorite ways of exploring and celebrating the world?

Leaders for Our Natural World

This month rather than just look at one leader, I thought we’d take a look at a bunch of people who played a role in the conservation and Earth Day story. You may not know all of these people by name, but the work they did when they were alive have made sure that we have many of the open spaces, animals, birds, and sea life that we have still and also helped to shape some of the policies we have today. If you look at most of their lives you’ll find that they weren’t perfect, but without their efforts we wouldn’t know or have nearly as much as what we do today.

John James Audubon: You’re probably familiar with the name Audubon if you have spent any time in the natural or conservation world, but may not have known that the name is from this man and his work with nature and birds. He’s one of the earlier proponents of all things in the natural world that is well known today and his work still has an impact on our lives today. He’s most well known for his artistic talents and desire to paint and describe the birds of America. Today his paintings and descriptions are still consulted by bird lovers and appreciated by nature lovers too.

John Muir: He’s definitely a name you may not know, but you probably know the organization he started: the Sierra Club. He’s also the one who really got the US started on defining and protecting national parks. Interestingly enough he immigrated to America as a young boy and only really got interested in the environment from a lesson when he went to university. The rest, as they say, was history because he went out and explored the US and even parts of Canada, making lots of records of geology and botany as he went, and eventually making recommendations to Congress on the importance of national parks (specifically Yosemite) and conservation.

George Washington Carver: He’s someone that many schools still include in their curriculum because of when he lived, and the fact that as a black man in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s he was educated and was able to prove some of the important farming practices that we recognize today like crop rotation and crop diversity to help keep the ground and crops healthy. One of the things he’s most known for are the over 300 uses for peanuts that he discovered.

Theodore Roosevelt: This is a name you should know since he was a US President from 1901-1909. He could be considered a contemporary of John Muir, and like Muir always had a passion for the natural world. Roosevelt helped establish some 200 national forests, monuments, parks, sanctuaries, and refuges, protecting so many diverse places, plants and animals around the US. Many of the conserved places we can visit today are still here because he made the effort to protect them.

Rachel Carson: She started with a passion for aquatic biology and was able to share her wisdom through books, including some that helped make significant progress on the global environmental movement. Unlike many of the other people we’re exploring today, she not only appreciated nature, she spoke strongly about some of the ways that we were damaging our environment and therefore the future of our world with our use of pesticides including DDT (which we don’t use anymore as a result).

Jacques Cousteau: This is a name you probably recognize because he is the most contemporary on the list and because of his life-long work on and under the seas. He was part of creating the scuba technology we use today, found several well known shipwrecks, and loved exploring the oceans. It’s in part because of his passion and work that we know as much as we do today, have as much interest in, and are able to do as much under the seas as we are.

These leaders remind us that the most success happens when there’s a combination of appreciation and prevention. It may not be fun, but it’s important to consider the downsides and the negative impact that you can have and how things can go wrong. But the world (and your clients) would quickly tire of constantly being on alert for fixing things and bad things happening, so it’s important to balance that with lots of appreciation and recognition of all the good that surrounds us.

Progress for the Earth and You

This week around the world many people are taking part in a big project that can best be understood as an incremental success effort. That project? Earth Day. It’s an interesting topic to discuss when it comes to success, because even in the last year we’ve had some failures as more animals and plants have been declared extinct. But at the same time I feel like those who started and led the charge over the years to get people to not only understand the impact that how we humans live has on our world and also learning to appreciate the natural world around us, both be disappointed in how little we’ve done but thankful at the same time that we haven’t just ignored the need and given up based on how massive the work is.

Incremental success efforts are those that take many years to document significant progress, which is why they’re measured not in total success, but incremental progress. In the case of our Earth, some of the “progress” is the fact that we’re not going backwards on all of our efforts. Other progress is in zoos and non profit organizations that work really hard to not only keep species alive for now but also thriving to such a degree that we’re able to be assured that these species aren’t going to go extinct any time soon both in captivity and the wild. Other organizations and people work hard to come up with new ideas that move the needle just a little bit on sustainability and understanding the impact that certain chemicals and behaviors have on the planet. And then still others put in most of their effort into raising awareness so that more “regular” people understand the little but consistent things they can do to both minimize their footprint and help the Earth thrive for hundreds more years. Each little bit of progress incrementally moves the success efforts in the right direction, and if we all give our little bit (or more than the minimum we have to) we’ll see real progress some day.

When you’re dealing with a success effort that’s as large and encompassing as saving the planet, it’s rare that it’s a one-and-done effort. But just because the success journey you’re on isn’t as big, doesn’t mean that you can’t use the incremental success concept to help you be more successful. It’s especially good for projects that aren’t time sensitive but you want to make consistent, forward progress on. For example if you own your home and have 6 projects on your to-do list, depending on the cost and work maybe you divide them up over 6 or 12 or even 18 years. It helps you to not be constantly thinking about what you’re not getting done, but focusing on doing the work that you’ve committed to and doing it well. So what progress are you going to make in your life and the world with the rest of this year?