Thought for the Week: Will You Create Utopia this Year?

Most of us have been led to believe that utopia is something that can not be attained, or if it is attained, it is not a way of living that can be sustained. Yet, dystopia seems like our probable future.

I created a video sharing ideas about the human behaviors that create dystopias and the human behaviors that support utopia. I challenge us all to look at how we can choose utopic behaviors, at the very least within our own lives.

Here’s a video of my Mindful Earthkeeper Thought for the Week:

If you prefer, you can more below:

There are certain drives and behaviors that lead to the creation of dystopias. There are other drives that create utopia.

A. Human Drives and Behaviors that Create Dystopia (Discordant)	B. Utopian Drives and Human Behaviors (Harmonic)
Greed	Generosity
Exploitation	Nurturing/Conservation
Lying	Truth
Ignorance	Wisdom
Group Think/Tribalism	Compassion/Universality/Healthy Individuality
Hyper Individualism/Narcissism	Interconnectivity
Slavery	Freedom
Unaccountability	Responsibility

If we look across the earth, we can see evidence of both dystopia and utopia.

Human beings have been creating dystopic and utopic communities and tribes since prehistoric times.

Next week, I ‘ll be sharing some rather revolutionary anthropological ideas from a book that looks at the distant past with a different point of view.

This week, I want you to consider the possibility that you are creating utopia if you choose to live from the human behaviors that create harmony.

When you are living a discordant life, you can be creating dystopia.

We don’t control everything that happens in the world around us.

We do have the ability to embody utopia.

Sustainability need utopic stories.

One of the things that I believe needs to change about the field of sustainability is our lack of stories that are utopic.

There are an abundance of dystopia stories. We tend to see those as realistic.

When you think about it, where do you go to see utopic stories?

The first thing that came to my mind is the Hallmark channel. There are a lot of people who watch Hallmark shows because they’re looking for signs of attainable utopia.

There is a sense in which Hallmark sells utopia.

Many years ago, I was working with the United States Business Council for Sustainable Development (USBCSD). This was in the 2000’s. Hallmark was one of their members, but they weren’t promoting themselves heavily as a sustainable company.

A few times that I’ve seen Hallmark movies, I’ve noticed they have stories with people who are creating green businesses or caring about the earth in some way.

The stories are predictable, often silly, you know where the stories are going.

We need some of that in sustainability. We need that in our lives.

Next week, I’m going to share ideas on how to take utopic ideals and behaviors and weave them into your life to create your unique kind of utopia.

This week, I simply want you to consider how you might already be creating utopia by the ways in which you are generous, nurturing, honest, wise, compassionate, responsible and free.