Say “I’ve had enough!” How craving and fear stand in the way of eco-awareness.

Celine McKeown | April 29, 2014

After attending the Global Presencing Forum (GPF) in 2014, Celine shares a number of lessons that we as Future Considerations practice in order to have greater impact in what we do at work and beyond work. Here is the third in our series of six.

Mindfulness

Tho Ha Vinh of the GNH Centre in Bhutan shared the values and principles that underpin the Bhutanese concept of Gross National Happiness. Ego is essentially about craving and fear, while eco is about compassion and mindfulness. So the key question is how to let go of craving and fear? For my part, I have been exploring the notion of what is ‘enough’ personally for the last 10 years. It’s not a straightforward inquiry in a cultural context where our search for identity drives our consumption patterns. Two useful questions we can ask ourselves are:

“How much do I need to be me?”
“What cravings and fears stand between me and my life’s work?”

In my personal quest for ‘enough’, I try to regularly remind myself that “Happiness is knowing that you are happy” and that “Happiness is not getting what you want but wanting what you have”.

Our story at Future Considerations is one of a team of people who collectively said ‘we’ve had enough’. A few years ago we decided to let go of central offices, hierarchical decision making, overheads and much more and thereby free ourselves from the financial, physical and mental constraints of traditional organisational structures. We formed a democratic organisation, bought out the owners, moved to working virtually (enabling some of the team members to relocate to the other continents!) with no formal hierarchies. What we faced up to were our cravings for security and fear of change, and this enabled a new kind of organisation to emerge, one which collectively gives us the freedom to work from wherever we want to live, freedom to choose the work we do, and freedom to operate from a place of eco-awareness.

Learn more about mindfulness at our upcoming introductory workshop, early bird tickets expire on 5 May 2014: