With a rapidly declining economic outlook, Canadians across the country are struggling to adapt to changing times this new year. It’s like we’re standing on shifting sands, not the most stable of foundations from which to build and prosper. Or, perhaps it’s more accurate to say we’re standing on shifting oil sands as we watch the collapse of our petrodollar.
Which poses a question, haven’t we been there and done this before? Look no farther for proof of our boom-bust cycle than the infamous Alberta bumper sticker from the 1980s: “Please God let there be another Oil Boom. I promise not to piss it all away next time.”
So, what’s our solution? This time I think the way out of our present economic failure has more to do with examining, and then changing, something far more substantial than our spending and saving habits. This time I think our society has to look at its dominant worldview and see what can be done about that. This time, we need to rock our worldview with a paradigm shift!
A worldview is about how we see things, how we subconsciously interpret reality. It is a powerful thing, and to even consider changing one is to admit that your present worldview might be wrong. Or, at the very least, not be working very well. Such an admission, of course, can be very hard to do.
Take our Western civilization, for example, which has had a dominant “materialist” worldview for the past two centuries. This way of life is devoted to material interests and a preoccupation with wealth, possessions, and luxury. But, this materialist way of looking at the world also denies or dismisses a more “spiritualist” way of looking at things, like that sixth-sense we often hear about. And what about those whose values align more with sharing what they have instead of aspiring for a bigger piece of the pie? Hmmm. Where’s the balance, flexibility, and open-mindedness when thinking along only one of these lines?
To drill down a bit more, the dominant demographic of mainstream society sees things quite differently than its increasingly growing offshoot, one known as the “Cultural Creatives”. While a mainstreamer might see continual economic growth and “making it” as beautiful things to strive for, a cultural creative would view these as impossible, not to mention implausible, in a finite world. Cultural creative types prefer an integrated and sustainable model to doing things, instead of winner-take all or predatory approaches.
So, here we are, heading into 2016 and being faced with, thanks to failing economic forces, taking another look at how we live and do business on this planet we call home. The good news, though, is it gives us a chance to get things right this time.
Imagine a chance to upgrade our aging infrastructure with environmentally sound materials and methodologies, as well as good-paying jobs. Imagine lowering our carbon footprint simply by manufacturing in Canada more of the goods we require, instead of having to ship them in from far-off lands. Benefits arising from this more balanced and sustainable way of living range from healthy household budgets to safe drinking water supplies (think Flint, Michigan and its lead-contamination crisis). Imagine a different kind of prosperity—one based on quality of life instead of quantity of things.
But, how do we get to this new way of being and doing? Which comes first when it comes to shifting a worldview: a behavior change, or a change in beliefs? If what umpteen coaching gurus have to say is true, then action follows thought. This means we need to shift our worldview before we can expect any behavior change.
What, then, if we changed our worldview to one that was more blended in nature, one that embraced a triad of materialism, environmentalism, and spirituality in our belief system? Our worldview could become something akin to a beautifully blended coffee, one with a delicious variety of beans for our taste buds to discover, instead of the bag of somewhat boring single-origin coffee beans that our culture here so often desires.
Moving from the instability of a shifting oil sands mentality to the stability of a life embracing a more balanced and blended worldview—now that’s in our best interest.
For more in your best interest, follow Sheelagh on Twitter @sheesays.
