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TagsBY WENDY DOLBER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE GURU NEXT DOOR
Earth Hour is almost upon us, New Jersey. Next Saturday, March 27th at 8:30 p.m., people, businesses and governments around the world will turn off their lights for one hour to draw attention to the need to address climate change.
Sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund, the three-year old event attracted close to a billion participants last year in more than 4000 cities in 87 countries. The Fund estimates that 80 million Americans participated, along with 318 cities and 8 U.S. States.
New Jersey is revving up for the challenge. The State has just passed a resolution to support Earth Hour, along with 93 businesses and organizations, 5 cities, 35 universities and schools and scores of individuals.
For all you closet activists, here's your chance to come out of the closet and into the dark and enjoy the sublime pleasure of turning angst into activity.Whoever conceived this event is brilliant. What is the most effective way to entice people to show their support for something that affects every citizen of the planet, but elicits a broad spectrum of responses ranging from "let someone else worry about it" to "become a catalyst of change" as encouraged by former Vice President Al Gore.
Make it easy, make it fun, make it visible, make it personal. For people who are already convinced that climate change is a real threat, March 27th is yet another opportunity to make a statement with their light switches. But for those who are unsure about whether the threat is real, or unconvinced that we can really do anything about it, it's a chance to get involved in the comfort of your own home.
More important, if you've been walking around for years with a low grade nagging worry about climate change, here's a gift-wrapped invitation to take the leap from angst to action.
Those visionaries at the World Wildlife Fund are not only bringing together hundreds of millions of people on behalf of climate change; their actions inspire us to be free of guilt and worry and salve ourselves with soothing activity. Too bad exchanging guilt and worry for action doesn't reduce your carbon footprint, or maybe it does!
What do you care about?
How we feel about our own role in issues like climate change is a perfect example of how we treat our desires to change our environment, whether internal or external. Why we act on some things that we would like to change and not others is a personal issue. There is no right or wrong. We all make choices about what we want to do every day. But we can't make a choice if we don't let ourselves know what we care about. A wonderful question to consider is this: Are we celebrating our own desires by acknowledging them and making conscious choices?
Think about all the nagging worries in your life that represent things you wonder if you can or should be doing something about. Why do they have to be nagging worries instead of simply things you would like to change? It's important to recognize that we notice things for a reason.
When we don't take responsibility for noticing the things we notice, it feels as if things draw our attention to them. It feels like a mystery to us that we keep noticing the same things over and over again. As if we have no role in where our eyes turn and what comes into our consciousness. What makes us notice things are our own desires and values and actually, our own desire to act. When we ignore that, what are we left with?
Typically, the thought that we should be doing things that we aren't doing and the emotional consequences of that state of mind: worry, angst, shame, guilt – you name it.
The good news is that we don't have to worry or feel guilty about what we do or don't do. But we can embrace our own personal radar system that hones in on the things in the world that we would like to be different. Part of embracing our own radar system is realizing that every time we notice something that we consider to be out of balance in the world, it's an opportunity to ask ourselves the question: What would I love to do about this? Not, "what should I do", but "what would I really love to do?"
For example, here are three little things I have been noticing for years now:
A vandalized sign at the Watchung train station in Montclair that has read "Watching" for the past few years. I fantasize about sneaking over there one night and repainting it. Can you get arrested for reverse-vandalism?
That pile of dead tree limbs in the park that has been a home for vermin since a Nor'easter years ago. My dog has fantasies about living there, but I'm concerned that the neighborhood children will make it into a playhouse.
Those deluded drivers that insist on roaring through town and on our highways with their cell phones plastered to their ears, or worse, texting!!! I pray they don't learn the hard way that multi-tasking isn't meant to put your life and the lives of others at risk.
Beyond some calls to the township and disapproving looks, I'm not really at peace with my efforts on behalf of correct signage, decaying detritus ridden tree remains and making the roads safe for, well, everyone.
In the darkness and silence of 8:30 p.m. this Saturday night, I plan to spend the time thinking of what I personally want to do about climate change and all the things in my world that I notice and care about. It doesn't matter whether I am a minute part of the solution or the whole solution.
What Earth Hour encourages is to know that making a difference can be as simple as turning out a light. But in order to do that, we have to know we care. What do you care about?
To learn more about 2010 Earth Hour, go to myearthhour.org.
Wendy Dolber is an Option Method practitioner and owns Dialogues in Self Discovery LLC, dedicated to teachings in the Option Method. Wendy has been involved in Option Method training and consultation for over 35 years and was trained by Option Method founder, Bruce Di Marsico. She is the author of The Guru Next Door: A Teacher's Legacy, a fictional work based on his life and teachings. She welcomes all comments and can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . More information can be found on the company website at TheGuruNextDoor.com. For more information on the Option Method, go to OptionMethodNetwork.com.
