The Hamster Wheel
Unless you intervene it will never seem like it's enough
Today, I sat down at my computer pondering what to write about. What idea was top of mind that I’d like to share with you, dear reader? Of course, inspiration comes from the weirdest places, so while I sat and stressed about nothing to talk about inner voices gave me the topic for today.
Never-enough-ness.
Yes, I made that word up. Merriam-Webster dictionary will likely add it next year - no worries.
My inner voice raced with all of the things that I should be doing. If you don’t know, when you have an inner voice tell you something with a “should” in it - red flag! I listened to all the ways that I should be spending my time to make more of an impact, the things that should be said to somehow change mindsets and policies and how little time I have to do them.
I felt immediately overwhelmed by the large amounts of things I “should” be doing because even if I dedicated every single day to this work, it wouldn’t be enough. Not because I don’t do good work, but because I have internalized the narrative that climate action is an individual responsibility, so the pressure can be immense. Now I know rationally that it isn’t my sole responsibility and I also know that we’re past individual actions being enough, but at times when I’m witnessing the havoc climate change is causing, I too can forget what I know.
I blame this on how we’ve been told that climate action is really the individual’s responsibility. Even the idea of carbon-footprint - a great way to demonstrate your superiority over others - was created by an advertising agency working for British Petroleum as a way to shift responsibility from big oil to individuals. With an immense media budget, access to researchers and governments, it soon became adopted as a way to assess our personal responsibility to the climate crisis. Let’s not forget that 100 corporations are responsible for roughly 70% of greenhouse gas emissions since 1980. Projecting responsibility on to the individual, keeps us all busy chasing our tails with initiatives that make little impact - changing light bulbs, recycling and turning off our lights - and forgetting that changing systems and policies is where we need to be focused. But I digress.
So this week, I’ve been witnessing the downpours locally, the floods globally, heat waves and forest fires and feeling the urgency of this crisis. It makes me feel that I have to be doing more. Whatever I have been doing isn’t enough. The hamster wheel of running yourself to a point of exhaustion seems reasonable considering the impacts we’re all facing.
It’s not. Or at least it’s not to me.
We must remember that when we feel the tug of self-sacrificing beyond reasonable limits, that doesn’t benefit the climate movement. It just leads to more burnout of our leaders and advocates which benefits the bad actors that are responsible for the large majority of why we’re in this crisis to begin with. So while it may seem virtuous to be that person who gives everything including their health, free time and energy to the cause, it sets a harmful example for the rest of us and reduces the resiliency of the movement. I have ran on the hamster wheel before. I never saw the end of the work, I never saw my anxiety about the crisis go down (in fact it increased) and the price I paid personally was steep. I lost weight, couldn’t sleep, personal relationships became fraught and eventually I got sick enough that I couldn’t work for a while. Too costly.
Last week, I was listening to a podcast where a famous actor was talking about how when he had finally reached being a millionaire, high level status and fame how defeating it was to realize that it was all an illusion and the problems he thought would go away, the happiness he would feel, the satisfaction achieved were never realized. He said, “Not many of us get the chance to see that is an illusion, but I’m here to tell you that it is.”
And while I don’t have any experience with being a millionaire or A list Hollywood star, I can tell you that the thoughts that if you just put in more, just sacrifice more, just work harder you will be able to make more of a difference and you’ll finally feel like you’re on top of things is also an illusion. The work will never go down, but your effectiveness, mental health and happiness will.
So where does that leave us? If the hamster wheel of self-sacrifice isn’t going to make us feel better, then what will? How do we challenge a seemingly insurmountable, urgent crisis?
Together. There’s no other way. Discard the idea that you need to do this on your own, that you need to fight climate change individually. It’s bullshit.
Humans have gotten this far not because of our ability to be individualistic, but rather collaborative and cooperative in community. Large emitters and climate denying governments want us to believe that we can break away from this part of our heritage and do it as individuals. The “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” ideology has little impact on complex systems like our environment.
So next time you’re feeling that pull to just do more to calm your nerves, to give away more of yourself to the anxiety and stress - please resist. Take a breath and figure out a way to transmute your desire to go do more as an individual into ways as an individual you can build community and connections to take collective action.
We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.” - Herman Melville
Weekly News Digest - “The Blowhole”
Here are some emerging stories and events that we think will have an impact on our region that we’re keeping our eye on.
October Surprise! Next week, we will be announcing an amazing event happening in Barrie at the end of October featuring some very well known Canadians. Whale subscribers will be some of the first to get tickets to this amazing fundraiser. Stay tuned!
Local MPPs in the news, but not for good reasons. Our goal has always to ensure our governments (at all levels) are accountable to citizens, that decisions are transparent and they are representing the interests of the constituents not special interests and donors. This recent scandal involving MPP Doug Downey (Barrie-Springwater-Oro Medonte) and MPP Caroline Mulroney (York-Simcoe) sure puts into question their interests and motives.
Who is running the show here? We’re keeping an eye on the developments with the Greenbelt scandal. The latest is that developers who have personally benefitted from these changes are now trying to block Ontario’s Auditor General - who is there to protect OUR interests - ability to investigate the issue more thoroughly. Good faith actors in our community who have nothing to hide would not attempt to block a legislative process that is in the best interest of the public.
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