Perfection - a reflection.
This is my stone, given to me a year ago, encouraging me to reflect on ‘perfection’.
During the winter i would have it on my radiator during meetings, and sometimes take the warm stone into my hands and feel the energy of what this warm reflection might mean to the situation i was consulting to. Which in my case could be work with the Ethical Standards Commission regulating the Scottish Government, or work doing focus groups for Shelter Scotland about the lived experience of the housing and homelessness crisis.
It has sometimes been important to remind me as an external ‘critical friend’ consultant, to be open to the imperfections of the reality that these are all human systems.
I thought I would just do a quick blog about the usefulness of being aware of when you are straining, or striving, as this builds on my series about Avoiding Burn Out and Harnessing Time and Energy. Because as we come through the post-crisis phase after the pandemic, I am working with organisations and different professions who are exhibiting signs of burn out, and organisations who are not learning from this phase.
I also wanted to say the importance of taking one action. As a passionate campaigner type person about climate change and creating a socially just society, over time I switched to:
A FairPhone, fairly made, fairly traded, fairly sourced
EcoTricity powers my home and work
The Phone Coop provide all my phone and web based connectivity.
My bank accounts are with Triodos Bank, putting the money to good positive usage
Organic Farm Food delivered locally by East Coast Organics
Subscribe to Positive News.
Ethical toilet roll from ‘Who Gives a Crap’
My pension provision (tiny though some of it is) i set up to be invested in Wind Farms
And that’s the point - only some of my pension is ‘clean’, ‘perfect’, ‘sorted’ … it isn’t perfect…
Yet I can take, one action every so often, and it keeps me moving in the right direction.
At the same time it takes TIME and ENERGY and I only feel I have so much of that…
Here’s the thing…
Zones of optimum performance, worth mapping your stress responses to them.
The dance we have with perfection, is a paradigm, a mindset, which is useful, yet also has its shadow side. It is important to keep an eye on not ending up in the Panic Zone too much, or even the Strain Zone, as actually your brain starts to shut down, your creativity goes downwards and your inner critics become louder and louder. Even if you don’t end up kicking the dog, or smashing crockery, your still costing yourself and /or others from being their best.
The FairPhone story is an interesting story for looking at perfection.
For starters it took time. I remember when i first heard about it from Quakers in Business (that I am a member of), where a few people who were passionate about it, said they were in the queue waiting till it came out in a few years time. Some of them refused to have a mobile until a non-exploitative mobile phone was created.
Secondly it was co-created. The Phone Coop were one of the main development investor stakeholders. When i was Chair of Scotlands first Fair Trade shop (One World Shop), we helped with marketing.
Thirdly it wasn’t perfect. In fact the first handset irritated quite a few of my trusted friends…
Yet it got better.. and 10 years later, it is still true to its real design purpose that it PHYSICALLY exists which then CHALLENGES the ney sayers, who think that taking on the electronics industry and the big unethical dimensions of technology can’t be done. And it make surplus, fairly distributed.
We all have computers in our pockets… when will we reach tipping point…
Soon,
Soon
CODE RED has been declared by the hundreds of governments' who signed off the exact wording in the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report ahead of this years COP 26.
Getting back to Perfection.
It is not about NOT taking action, because that could be about waiting till its perfect. Nor is it about straining and over stressing the system and burn out. It is definitely not about telling others what to do. Yet it also is about leadership, taking action, and networks…
Most of all the threads that are actually in all the stories above is about the power of collective action. I couldn’t develop a phone, i couldn’t create electricity… not on my own. We need organisations and governments, we need governance and protocols, and they all need us. They need us to know and recognise they are human systems, and we need them to recognise we are humans who want change.
Lastly if you want to move your banking to Triodos i can give you a code to do so that raises money for charities i support. Or if you want a discount code for Positive News i can pass that on. Or just enjoy watching this film or my family made by Triodos bank.
Lets keep helping each other. We are not alone in our desire for a better world… even if sometimes some of us would really really like a more perfect world.
Duncan