Changing… the idea that change is outside us
© 2024, James McLean
“This needs to change to make that happen.”
That's our first instinct, isn't it? That change is something that happens outside us. I see sustainability professionals changing things in the environment around us, but very few people stop long enough to realise that there are different types, or even levels, of change
The simplest of changes that we make are substitutional changes. A popular (and recent for myself) substitutional change would be switching from fossil fuel cars to electric vehicles. It doesn't really require a change in our habits or a change in our way of doing things or thinking about things. It's just taking one type of technology and substituting it for another.
Then there’s the type of change that I call ‘psychological adaptation’, which requires us to use some critical thinking. This type of change asks us to think about the assumptions that we are making, or the values that we are holding that we need to let go of, or modify in some way.
If we return to the electric vehicle example again, maybe we need to ask ourselves:
“What does transport of the future really need to look like?”
Substituting cars means that we are not doing anything about congested traffic, or the need to keep funding roads (especially as they are being destroyed quite quickly by floods and fires and other natural disasters).
What might transport look like if we did it differently, instead of just having cars? It’s not uncommon for households to have one car per person (I’m as guilty of this as anyone). What would it take to sacrifice some of the personal convenience for a different solution?
To really change, we need to look at those types of questions and think about, what do we need to let go of from the past?
What needs to be more important in the future?
How do we actually reprioritise those values?
That would require a deeper change. An adaptive change.
But that’s another article in itself…