Blog 10
Describe your personal ethic as you develop as a nature interpreter. What beliefs do you bring? What responsibilities do you have? What approaches are most suitable for you as an individual?
Hey! For our final blog post, we were asked to write about our personal ethic as we develop as nature interpreters.
I’m currently in my final year of university, and I’m beginning to look for jobs. And for the first time in my life, I’m looking for career jobs, instead of part-time of summer positions. So needless to say I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what jobs I ideally want, what jobs I’m willing to do, and what jobs I’m not willing to do. Our course readings for this week mentioned a fear of a desk job being a potential motivating factor for pursuing a career related to environmental interpretation. That one did admittedly resonate with me a bit. My last job was more or less of a desk job, where I worked as a research assistant in a lab. And even though, on paper, it was closer to what I want to do as a career, I didn’t enjoy it very much. I missed working in the service industry, I missed the high-energy, social atmosphere, I missed getting to work with my hands and see the results right in front of me. Spending most of my working hours not only indoors, but in a dim lab staring at a laptop just made me irritable. So I’d love to find a job in the sciences that’s more hands-on and active, but I’ve realized I’d happily move away from research if I can’t find a job in that field that lets me move around.
Every week or so I get an email from the university describing job opportunities. It hasn’t been very useful in finding jobs, but it sure has been useful in helping me figure out exactly what place/companies/fields I am not willing to work for. There’s always plenty of decently paying opportunities working for mega-corporations like PepsiCo, and the like, as well as their countless subsidiaries. I know now that I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I worked for a place like that. I would much rather go just about anywhere else, including back to the service industry. I might have a less prestigious career, but I care about having a job that I enjoy doing and that I see as important. During my last job, it was difficult to get up and go to the lab in the morning when I couldn’t really see the effects and importance of the research that was being done. I know that whatever I end up doing, it needs to be relatively active, and even better if I get to spend time outdoors as part of it. As long as I’m still able to spend my free time outside, that much is negotiable.
I wanted to go into more details about my beliefs/motivations/self-assigned responsibilities. First, the rather apparent role of nature in mental health and our current culture around it. Not that I have enough space to go into all of my thoughts on that, but I’d like to include a few of them here. One, on mental health being treated like an individual problem, when it really should be recognized as a systemic one. Even if people admit that it’s systemic, the “solutions” and treatments that are currently popular tend to be highly individual. Take mood-regulating medication, go to eternal therapy, isolate yourself from others in the name of self-improvement. In general, mental health has been both commercialized and capitalized upon. Like I mentioned, I don’t have the adequate space to go through my thoughts on the systemic causes of mental lack-of-wellness. But as I’m sure many of us are aware, spending time outside and spending time with other people (or even both at the same time!) have been shown time and time again to be beneficial to human well-being. Honestly, I don’t think we need more research in that area. We already know, and as much as I like numbers, more statistics aren’t going to save us.
So for me personally, all that means that I don’t want to have a job that drags down the health of other people, or my own. I would love to have a job that helps remove some of the barriers that have been put up between nature and people, which I don’t think should belong in different categories in the first place. But an important caveat for me is that I don’t want my career to be a constant fight. I’m quite tired of war analogies. There’s less of a point in destroying something if there’s nothing better to work towards. I don’t want to dedicate my life to fighting climate change, because I’ll make myself miserable and make everyone around me a little less happy. That’s not to say I don’t care, but I do think that a bunch of sad and lonely people aren’t going to bring about much positive change. Like the video with David Suzuki and Richard Louv mentioned (I think it was Richard Louv who mentioned it), it’s hard to make change if people don’t have any sort of positive idea of a future to look forwards to.
So to summarize as neatly as I can: If I end up doing something related to nature interpretation, I want it to get people excited and help people feel more connected to the world around them.
Picture: One of the Arboretum gardens after a snowstorm
On the same note as working towards something rather than solely working against, I have a book recommendation for anyone looking for a sci-fi story with a positive outlook: Monk and Robot by Becky Chambers (and its sequel)
Thanks for reading!
Hi there,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on your personal ethics as you develop as a nature interpreter. Your reflection on your values, beliefs, and work goals gave me insight into the factors that influence your career path.
It's admirable that you are reflecting on the kind of job that fulfills you and is consistent with your values. It's understandable that you're afraid of a desk job, and it's encouraging to see how dedicated you are to locating a position that lets you be involved and hands-on. The fact that you realized you were missing the vibrant, social environment and the observable outcomes of your work emphasizes how crucial personal fulfillment is to a profession.
Your ability to differentiate between career prospects and dedication to work for companies that share your beliefs is demonstrated by your choice to avoid positions with huge companies such as PepsiCo. Selecting a feeling of purpose and professional fulfillment above prestige is a brave and moral choice that shows how committed you are to finding meaningful employment.
I like how you looked at the relationship between mental health and nature. It's interesting to consider mental wellness from your systemic rather than personal point of view. The importance of well-being is noticeable in your observation of the commercialization and capitalization of mental health in contrast to the proof in science demonstrating the positives of spending time outside and socializing outside.
It's wonderful that you want a career that breaks down boundaries between people and the environment and improves people's mental health. The idea that your work should not be an ongoing struggle aligns with the understanding that long-term development requires a positive outlook. The rejection of wartime analogies in favour of crafting an uplifting and motivating story shows an integrated and equitable strategy for tackling environmental issues.
It's a great objective that you place such focus on using nature interpretation to thrill people and make them feel more connected to the environment around them. The idea that cultivating pleasant feelings and relationships might act as a trigger for transformation seems fascinating and hopeful. Your position is consistent with the idea that encouraging people to take care of the environment entails providing a compelling picture of a sustainable and peaceful future in addition to bringing attention to the problems.
It's a great objective that you place such focus on using nature interpretation to fascinate people and make them feel more connected to the environment around them. This is something I also resonate with, sharing my passion of nature with others and seeing them enjoy it is a very rewarding feeling. The idea that nurturing enjoyable feelings and relationships might act as a trigger for transformation seems fascinating and hopeful. Your position is consistent with the idea that encouraging people to take care of the environment entails providing a compelling picture of a sustainable and peaceful future in addition to bringing attention to the problems.
Thanks again for sharing your ideas on this topic, your blog was enlightening to read.
All the best,
Morgan















