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Sustainable Joy

Sara Wolcott | Wednesday 7th October 2009

Too often, sustainable development becomes mundane, or an impossible dream, or rhetoric, or, even worse, a lot of hard work and denying myself/ourselves of pleasure, ease and comfort.

I'm really not interested in pursuing any of those things.

I am interested in joy. Sustainable joy - the kind of joy that lasts over the long term, for many people. That kind of joy, the joy that comes from doing the right thing at the right time with the right people (or even just muddling through), is radical. It's not about consumerism, its not about marketing, its not about getting people to change their minds and do something different. It's 'deep', it's even spiritual (understood as you will).

Recently I'd almost forgotten about it. I came back from vacation and learned that hte job I thought I had is not there - and neither is the second job I thought I could easily get. So now I'm one of thousands/millions of unemployed around the world, many of whom, like me, want to make the world a better place and are now worried about paying the rent.

So when I heard a recent talk by Allistair McIntosh, a Scotsman as solid and earthy as the land he loves, talk about having hope in the midst of climate change, it hit me, hard. Yes, I thought to myself, yes. And later, a deeply religious friend of mine reminded me of what I'd let myself forget: that the opposite of faith is not doubt but despair, and that the response to climate change should not be about denying ourselves, but about coming into a place of deep joy. That joy may be a great deal simpler and slower than the lives we now live. But it does not have to be a deprivation. Indeed, we are not necessarily turning away from something, but we are, if we do it right, turning towards something. And while turning is often difficult, it is not necessarily unpleasant.

It was the joy in these people's voices that got me, even more than what they said. And I felt something inside of me was re-kindled, a fire I'd forgotten to feed, that is more about joy-from-within and connection-with-others than about making my mark in the world.

I've been really enjoying applying for jobs recently - and enjoying the freedom for a deeper level of reflection. Still not happy about the uncertainty of paying next month's rent. But there's many different parts of sustainable development, and right now, part of the good work that I'm doing is re-kindling my own personal development, an integral part of any truly sustainable pathway I wish to be part of building.

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Pete Burden | Posted: 8 October 2009

Great stuff Sara. An antidote to the gloom-mongers that is not just dismissive of the problems. It may sound tacky, but I think we should definitely look for the opportunity in the crisis.