One afternoon, I was trying to clean the stain on the pot the other day. Prior to that, I have soaked the pot in enzyme for three days, just to make sure that stain would not stay. It did not take long before I realize I cannot get rid of it. The stain was still there, it would not give in. I took another environmentally friendly cleanser, still failed. I figured if the stain was a character, it must make fun of me now, “Well, let`s wait and see how an environmentalist deal with this.” Another 10 minutes, I took an aerosol of Dr. White, put on my mask, and finished the stain for good. “Problem solved,” I felt so relieved and satisfactory.
People in green industry, green talents, so to speak, often unconsciously look down upon other people. We believe we are morally correct, and this makes our friends do not want to hang out with us. The reason why I can make this point so confidently is because whenever I post something about green on Facebook, very few people like my post. On the other hand, I get many likes on group dinner photos. I believe we should reflect ourselves, and start to include “other people” that we typically think they are on the wrong side, not doing anything good to the environment.
The difference between green talents and “Other people” is that people in green industry see the world differently. It is like you install a special software which changes the way they see the world in their brains. An achiever in green industry would think more systematically and have long-term vision others usually do not develop. In their mind, the world is not linear but a web. Let us take a few examples. If you take only price factor into the account, choose organic foods over conventional one does not make any sense, it usually cost three times than conventional food. However, if you have a long-term view, you will know that comparing to the bills you are going to pay for doctors, three times more expensive is really nothing. That is why for green talents, we would choose organic foods, not doing this for moral reasons, but a rational one. Same principle applied to work, green talents focused on whether our products can be profitable and sustainable at the same time.
The good news is, this long-term view is not talents you need to be born with, it is something you can develop. You can download this “visionary” software, just like people in the movie Interstellar can see a five-dimension world, we can share the same green mind as long as you decide to do so.
The quickest way to download the software is through learning from the experienced, people who have been there, done that, like green mentors in Green Impact Academy. The process of learning might be uncomfortable, however it gives you an opportunity to reconstruct your thinking, broadening your vision which enables you to see a whole new world. May you install the software in future!