Last week, in the lift at work, I bumped into a colleague I haven’t seen in a very long time. I wanted to catch up with her but I was already late for another meeting. She was surprised to find out I took a sabbatical over one year ago and wanted to know everything about it, there, in the lift. “What did you do?” “What was the best of it?” And so it happened. I had a real life ‘elevator speech’ moment.
And that’s when you realise how silly this business jargon is. The only time you may actually need an elevator speech you most likely won’t be prepared for it…
We were arriving at my floor and of course no brilliant sharp line came to my head and all I managed to say was “It was great, really good!” Just the regular ‘elevator small talk’.
But the episode made me wonder what the ‘elevator speech’ of my sabbatical would be. Is it possible to explain in a simple way the extent of the damage that those months of leisure really had in my life? Not sure… but it made me want to write again, and figure it out.
Re-wiring
I still get surprised everyday by the way I choose to conduct myself in the world today. From what I eat, where I shop, what I shop for, what I read, to more fundamental choices such as what I want from my relationships, my work, my future… I don’t even remember how I used to feel about the same subjects before the sabbatical… And I think I know how it all started… with a very basic decision I made in July 2015: to quit eating meat.
It was triggered by one particular piece of news on a Facebook post; the hunting and killing of Cecil, a celebrity lion from the Zimbabwean National Park. I was really touched by the tragic end to that gorgeous animal’s life so I let social media invade me with all sorts of stories about Cecil’s life, his family and his agonising death of over 40 hours after being hunted down by an American tourist. It was then that I came across another post on the subject that had a picture of a cow, a pig and a chicken, all of them with a sign saying, “I’m Cecil”. “I’m Cecil”. “I’m Cecil”.
And that was it. Of course the main reason wasn’t really Cecil (who I believe had a better life than most animals on this planet), nor the post. It was the state of mind I had during my sabbatical: open, curious and willing to revisit all the connections of my very well-wired brain. Cecil’s death was just the ray of light that entered in the little crack I left open. And once you let the light enter, it takes over, and there is no coming back.
Quitting meat wasn’t difficult. Actually it was the most logical and consistent decision I’ve ever made. I have considered myself an animal lover my whole life. It’s something I have inherited from my parents and from having pets since I was little. I’ve always felt a profound respect for animals, all of them. Nevertheless I have consumed meat since I got my first teeth. Yes I did use to enjoy quite often a medium rare stake with frites or a spicy chicken curry. How come?!
The answer is simple, it was a total disconnection between my mind and my heart. A mind ruled mainly by the assumptions and conceptions of the world that I inherited from the western world in which I live. And a heart full of love and good intentions, but that I have never given too much consideration, having learned it is not supposed to be a reliable source for wisdom by the same society that conquered my mind.
But this time I decided to stay with the discomfort that emerged from that post. I promoted my heart and allowed myself to empathise with the pain that many animals go through on this planet. Not just Cecil. Or Bambi. Or Nemo.
I unplugged the ‘It’s-ok-to-eat-meat-and-love-animals’ wire because that wire wasn’t mine in the first place. I suddenly looked at that very well-established habit of mine th
rough a new heart and mind connection. I woke up to the fact that animals and nature deserve as much respect as any living being; humans are just one of them. This planet and all its wonderful forms of life are not at my service. Something I’ve always understood, but this time something different, I also felt it.
A new software update
With that brand new connection of heart and mind, the short circuit started. When reading about animal rights I also discovered the equally shocking truth about the impact that livestock industry has on the environment. It is by fact one of the biggest sources of destruction on the planet due to deforestation, water consumption, energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions emissions. All those indisputable facts have always been there, one click away from me.
And to be honest I have read about of animal agriculture on climate change quite a few times in the past. Not just read it, understood it, got angry, even wanted to do something about it. But then my comfortable life got in the way and thoughts like “What difference could I make?” or “Maybe it’s just a conspiracy theory” won, and poor heart had no chance with the super armoured mind charged with ‘keep-the-establishment’ technology.
But this time no excuses were accepted. The partnership heart and mind was in action providing me with a total new perspective of those same facts, where I could clearly see my own diet taking part in the horrific plot of climate change.
From there I haven’t stopped questioning. I got fascinated about understanding what is behind other daily choices. What am I really eating, drinking? What am I really buying? How are my everyday habits and beliefs contributing to the world?
I started to study about emerging theories that propose a more holistic view of the world as the way to lead to a more sustainable and fair future: Theory U, Conscious capitalism, Transition Design for a Limited planet, Systems View of Life, Systems Thinking. And the more I read about them the more I’m clear that the answer for a better world won’t come from a new economic system, government, party or religion. It will only happen when we truly connect with ourselves (heart and mind), with others, and with the nature.
And that’s quite a mind-fuck for someone who studied Economics and that learned that the effects of our actions on the planet, or in communities, are just negative externalities; that the more I’m keen about maximising my individual utility, and everybody does the same, the ‘better’ for all, as we let the “invisible hand” do its job and find the perfect balance of supply and demand. Well, in 2016 looking at the state of the planet and the amount of inequalities that still exist, I think someone needs to find that hand and fire it.
System Thinking, for example, took over me like an upgraded version of my own Operating System, and as such, there is no way back to the old one. It is so simple that it almost annoys me it never occurred to me before. Thinking in a systemic way means always pushing ourselves to “see the world through the eyes of another”. Because another is always involved, in everything we do.
It got into me when I had to answer this one question in the System Thinking course I took: “Should you eat fish?” In order to answer it we had to consider all the different systems impacted by that question: the fishing communities, the distributors, the retailers, the ocean, my own health, my beliefs, and even the one system we all forgot during the exercise: the fish itself. It was striking to realise that such a routine decision could impact so many entities…
In the end, to eat or not to eat, that is not the question. It’s about realising the extent of the impact of our daily decisions, and how we all, individually, contribute with our actions to many more systems than the ones we want to see.
This new O.S. has shaken my world on absolutely every aspect. It has given me permission to embrace a new sort of curiosity that is committed to question absolutely all the assumptions and beliefs that used to dictate the way I act in the world. I consciously decided to take full accountability of my place in the universe, with respect and gratitude. And awake to new perspectives, new possibilities, new truths…
A new Heart-Mind connection and a new Operational System: an upgraded version of myself. Maybe that’s my elevator speech.
