Catastrophe and the Power of Personal Change
“I try but it’s hard to remember.”
This is the statement I often hear from friends about environmentally friendly practices. What do you do if there is no recycling bin in the general vicinity? What if the waiter puts a straw in your drink before bringing it to your table? What if your significant other insists that 63 degrees in the summer is the only acceptable sleeping temperature?
It can often feel like so much of our day-to-day conservation activities are out of our control: I can’t control the temperature or recycling practices of my office building, and for that matter, if my office is wasting so much paper and plastic, then why should I worry about a few extra water bottles?
However, I would like to point out that every one of these concerns falls into the category of “learned helplessness,” the concept that if one is conditioned to believe she no personal power, she will stop acting even when her actions could have positive effects2. This belief -- this learned helplessness, is aided and abetted by the sensationalism of not only the media but our society. If the messaging is consistently catastrophic, what is to stop people from playing the proverbial ostrich and putting their head in the sand?
As a school psychologist, I deal with the results of personal trauma daily. I see people learn the inefficacy of their actions across the board, subconsciously deciding that “nothing I do matters.”
In the same way, the issue of conservation on a grand scale is too large for any one person to tackle. It can lead even those in the field to ask, “Where is the hope?”2. In this case, however, I would argue that the hope lies in individual action. Yes, one refused straw, one recycled can, one turned off light, can seem obsolete in a sea of used straws, wasted cans, and light pollution. But what if that one refused straw becomes a table of refused straws? Humans are inherently social creatures so why not use that to our advantage?
In an article for Forbes magazine, Nick Morgan1 argues that people mirror each others’ emotions and actions and states that people who aspire to be leaders should use their actions to fill the space they wanted to inhabit.
This will look different for each person. For the accountant this may be recycling paper on an individual scale at first and potentially convincing the office to do so through direct involvement or merely through encouraging mimicry of her own actions. Once it is seen as socially acceptable -- even preferable -- to recycle in the office, then others will most likely follow. For the waitress, if individual customers start refusing straws, maybe she will stop bringing a straw with each glass, and maybe a manager will see, and the practice of waiting for requests for straws will become a business-wide policy.
So much of our power comes from action within our own capacity, and just as learned helplessness comes from repeated messaging that nothing you do matters, personal power can build as we see the positive results of our actions.
With this in mind, I argue that the media holds more inherent power and social sway than the average person and so should inhabit the space it wants to inspire.
There is significant power in mass messaging. If the message is one of unyielding catastrophe, why would not the individual -- the barista, the teacher -- place their head in the sand and await the impending, unavoidable doom in a state of artificial complacence.
But, if the message is one of hope, of change, of personal power, perhaps each person will see that their actions have potential and that maybe if they act next time -- even in the smallest way -- their actions could build momentum, and then, that catastrophe -- once so inevitable -- could be prevented.
Morgan, N. (2015, September 02). We Humans Are Social Beings - And Why That Matters For Speakers and Leaders. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/nickmorgan/2015/09/01/we-humans-are-social-beings-and-why-that-matters-for-speakers-and-leaders/#603e79c96abd
Swaisgood, R. & Sheppard, J. (2010). The Culture of Conservation Biologists: Show Me the Hope!, BioScience, 60:8, 626–630, https://doi.org/10.1525/bio.2010.60.8.8