Your spouse and kids can be your greatest excuses for giving up or your greatest support and motivation.
People tell me over and over, “You’re a single man. You can make unilateral decisions so it’s easier for you to live more sustainably. If you had a wife or kids, you’d see you couldn’t do what you do.”
Yet people in marriages, with kids, or both who succeed at their dreams often tell me their spouses were their greatest sources of support and their kids motivated them.
Most recently, Chuck Marohn gushed about how his wife was what enabled him to risk doing what he felt was right, take his career in a new direction away from a known high income (but that would hurt people) to an unknown one.
Bea Johnson shared how her husband, initially skeptical of her reducing waste, came to support her. Their two sons embraced it too.
Joshua Becker’s relationship with his son motivated his simplifying his life and becoming a minimalist.
The Problem: What Happens When You Learn Your Values Clash With Those of Someone Intimate?
What happens when you discover your values clash with a spouse or someone else close to you? Do you cave? To help understand this challenge, I read a book a while ago on families torn apart by the US Civil War. Many people I know clash with their parents, who generally disengage from acting on the environment more than kids.
If you value sustainability and your spouse doesn’t, is that the end of the story? Do you sweep it under the rug? Do you discount the people hurt by your polluting and depleting, by your funding lobbyists?
I don’t know all the answers. My family may include the people who understand and support me least on sustainability leadership. Still, I hope you can use the above examples as role models to see you don’t have to give up. You may find they value it more than you think. The Spodek Method helps people get in touch with deep emotions and motivations toward sustainability that our culture leads people to suppress and deny. We feel vulnerable when people make us feel shame around the environment.
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