INSIGHT: Is This Necessary?

(Boring) Prerequisites for Success
Prerequisites matter. I'm hunkered down trying to make progress on a variety of long-deferred organizational chores. We decided to set aside this week to attend to those necessary, yet less interesting projects that never seem to get done, like organizing files and finally getting new business cards printed. I've come to appreciate the imperative for robust infrastructure.

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INSIGHT: Can This Be Improved? 

Why Yes, Yes It Can
I've started catching up. I've abandoned the fantasy that I'll ever get everything done. Having more to do gets me up in the morning. The trick is not to miss anything important. In this way, sustainability pursuits are both useful and exhausting: there's always more to do. 

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INSIGHT: How Content Are You?

The Summer of Our Dissatisfaction
Discontent is essential. Innovation is inhibited by satisfaction with the status quo. My work is about identifying potential, expeditions into the fertile no man's land between what is and what could be. Realizing this future, particularly when the process involves convincing others to step outside their comfort zone (which never seems to be as large as I would like), often invokes frustration.

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INSIGHT: What Do We Already Know?

Reimagining the New
Sometimes the "new" isn't always better. Last week you wrote, "If we're going to tackle climate change, among other sustainability-related challenges, we're going to need to engage the new much more readily than we do today." While I agree this is true on many levels, it's not always a truism.

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INSIGHT: What's Your Course?

Explaining To Learn
Everyone should teach. The younger the students, the better. Having to explain what you know, or think you do, to inquisitive youth keeps you honest. Formulating a lecture or discussion on a subject I practice just about every day forces me to question what exactly I do, how and why.

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INSIGHT: Can This Week Be Interrupted?

Necessary Diversions
Summer is my high season. Writing these paragraphs every week before work hours requires discipline. I feel constant pressure to be doing something more urgent. I've been producing these micro essays for so long that I take the self-reflective process they involve for granted. I'm constantly surprised at how little opportunity people have to step back and consider "the how" of their work.

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INSIGHT: What Is There To Say?

Empowering The Climate Generation
I'm sorry. It always seems like the first thing I should say. Next Monday, I'll walk into a classroom filled with 18 teenagers from across the country looking to learn about sustainability. They are the unwitting climate generation, likely to experience the impacts of global warming more intensely than any cohort before them. 

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INSIGHT: With Whom Will We Work?

Realizing Collective Potential
Innovation begins at home. But it can't stop there. A fellow sustainability organization recently invited me to contribute to their strategic planning process. Not one of their questions referenced collaboration. The future success of entities of any size will require aligning one's expertise and resources with those of others. 

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INSIGHT: Why Buy the Farm?

The Feedback Imperative
It happens fairly frequently. I'll meet someone new, or run into a colleague, and they'll mention that they read, and generally appreciate, these weekly reflections. While edifying, such acknowledgment is not the reason I write them. But it helps. Positive feedback loops matter, especially when pursuing long-term, systemic change. 

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