This Sustainable Life

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506: I lost $10 million on September 11, 2001. Here is what I learned from those who sacrificed and served.

Ep. 506

Sorry for the slow pace of this episode, but just before recording I looked at the firehouse across the street from my apartment, the small plaque naming the firemen who died trying to help others, and the flowers people put there for them, which led me to lose it as I started recording.

I've never considered the changes to my life meaningful in comparison, despite my losses being greater than anyone I know who didn't die or was related to someone who died for the obvious reason that no material loss compares. Not even close.

But twenty years later, it occurs to me that not communicating about the loss and what I learned from it doesn't help either, because when faced with a huge material loss---I lost about ten million dollars and the future I'd sacrificed other dreams for---we can choose to give up or we can choose to find our values and live by them, if not the fleeting material stuff.

In this episode I share what I live for, what in part I learned from the firefighters who served that day, the servicemembers who enlisted for years to come, as well as from others who lost. We can prevent far greater losses than September 11, than the Holocaust, than the Atlantic slave trade in conserving and protecting our environment.

I choose to devote my life to the greatest cause of our time, in helping the most number of people from the greatest amount of suffering of any time.

If you'd like to help, we who choose to serve, could use your help. But we don't have to enter towering infernos. We eat vegetables instead of takeout, live closer to family instead of flying to and from them, have one child, and learn to lead others to enjoy the same. Contact me if you'd like to join.

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3/8/2023

675: Derek Sivers, part 1: Leading versus Exploring Frontiers

Ep. 675
I bring leaders from all areas to sustainability. The challenges to changing culture to sustainability aren't in technology, science, journalism, activism, or politics, though all those fields are relevant. Their practitioners generally aren't skilled in what changes culture: the social and emotional skills of leadership. Most people don't know that living more sustainably improves their lives, not the reversion to the Stone Age or Mad Max apocalypse our culture teaches us to fear.From the start of the conversation, Derek distinguished that he sees himself as an explorer, not a leader. He's exploring the frontiers of life following his whim or what he finds around him. He suggests that leaders give more direction to others to help them follow. He acknowledged with a "touché" that he does have a lot of followers, one of my main measures of a leader.The next day, he posted to his page some related thoughts in, Explorers are bad leaders, which sparked lively debate in his comments. Many suggested more overlap than you might think.His distinction led me to consider my role. I hadn't thought about seeing myself as exploring the frontier, but I have been. When I've had the option of leading others and exploring more frontier, I've generally chosen to explore more frontier.Some examples: avoiding packaged food seemed impossible and took me six months to start. When I succeeded, instead of helping others follow that difficult challenge, sharing recipes and how I did it, I then chose not flying. Avoiding flying seemed harder than avoiding packaged food. When I succeeded in making a better life without it, instead of helping people along, I unplugged my fridge, then my apartment.Maybe I'm exploring the frontier of sustainability more than leading. Still, it's funny to call a frontier territory where all humans lived for 300,000 years. I'm working on developing leadership skills and techniques that work.Anyway, listen to the episode to hear how Derek got me thinking about my role and what's next for sustainability. We geek out on emacs, vi, and such things. I think I can safely say he sounded intrigued and will likely be back.Derek's home page, which links to all his work