Today, in the wake of hearing David Suzuki talk last night, I’ve been aware of myself feeling a very low level yet lingering feeling of discomfort. His words were challenging. His message wasn’t a particularly hopeful one and yet I’ve been thinking about it on and off all day. In particular, about the extraordinary ability of foresight we have as human beings. And how at arguably well past the 11th hour, we are turning our back on the very strategy that has allowed us to flourish.
As human beings, isn’t it so often a feeling of discomfort that motivates us to change?… I’m not going to even try and elaborate at 1am on Saturday morning. If I’m being really honest, tonight, all I want to do is take off this very light but prickly robe of discomfort, hang it up in the wardrobe and replace it with one that feels reassuring. And I have just found comfort in an unexpected place.
Uploading photographs onto my laptop, I’ve found one I took yesterday of a very young tree tree growing in Wellington’s botanical gardens. I find enormous comfort in the way this little plant rooted firmly in the earth, is getting on with growing. Bathed in sunlight, surrounded by trees of different shapes and sizes, with plenty of space to grow, it is quietly thriving and I can almost hear it tell me to simply feel the earth beneath my feet, breathe deeply and and together we can dream a bright and brilliant future into being.
Thank you Marianne, I suspect that you’re right and that they are compatible. The recipe I’m working on is a mix of grace, gratitude and faith with a good slug of inspiration and a just a pinch of discomfort. But the kind of discomfort that rather than leaving you closed off, leaves you open and questioning.
Lovely post, as was the previous one. I often think about this.
I’m inspired by and attracted to change-agents who are motivated by and act with grace, gratitude and faith – and yet I also suspect that a little discomfort can be a powerful motivator for change. I wonder if they are necessarily incompatible and maybe the path I’m trying to walk is one that rejects neither, but finds a way to hold space for both…