Studies have shown that how people react to other individuals and events is essentially influenced by their perception and not the particular individuals or events. By taking active steps to cultivate positivity, you'll counteract and alter a negative attitude.
Like half humanity, I've spent the last four weeks under lockdown thanks to the worldwide pandemic created by COVID-19. i'm extremely fortunate that in this point i have been ready to come here to those woodsnear my range in southern England. These woods have always inspired me, and as humanity now tries to believe how we will find the inspiration to retake control of our actions in order that terrible things don't come down the road without us taking action to avert them, i assumed this is often an honest placefor us to speak . And I'd wish to begin that story six years ago, once I had first joined the United Nations .
Now, I firmly believe that the UN is of unparalleled importance within the world immediately to market collaboration and cooperation. But what they do not tell you once you join is that this essential work is delivered mainly within the sort of extremely boring meetings -- extremely long, boring meetings. Now, you'll feel that you simply have attended some long, boring meetings in your life, and i am sure you've got .
But these UN meetings are next-level, and everybody who works there approaches them with A level of calm normally only achieved by Zen masters. But myself, I wasn't ready for that. I joined expecting drama and tension and breakthrough. What I wasn't ready for was a process that appeared to move at the speed of a glacier, at the speed that a glacie rused to maneuver at. Now, within the middle of 1 of those long meetings, i used to be handed a note. And it had been handed to me by my friend and colleague and co-author, Christiana Figueres. Christiana was the chief Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on global climate change , and intrinsically , had overall responsibility for the UN reaching what would become the Paris Agreement. i used to be running political strategy for her.
So when she handed me this note, I assumed that it might contain detailed political instructions about how we were getting to get out of this nightmare quagmire that we appeared to be trapped in. I took the note and checked out it. It said, "Painful. But let's approach with love!" Now, i really like this note for many reasons. i really like the way the small tendrilsare beginning from the word "painful." it had been a very good visual depiction of how I felt at that moment. But I particularly like it because as I checked out it, i noticed that it had been a political instruction, which if we were getting to achieve success , this was how we were getting to roll in the hay . So let me explain that. What I'd been feeling in those meetings was actually about control. I had moved my life from Brooklyn in new york to Bonn in Germany with the extremely reluctant support of my wife. My children were now during a school where they couldn't speak the language, and that i thought the deal for all this disruption to my world was that i might have a point of control over what was getting to happen. I felt for years that the climate crisis is that the defining challenge of our generation, and here i used to be , able to play my part and do something for humanity. But I put my hands on the levers of control that I'd been given and pulled them, and zip happened. i noticed the items I could control were menial day-to-day things. "Do I ride my bike to work?"and "Where do I even have lunch?", whereas the items that were getting to determine whether we were getting to achieve success were issues like, "Will Russia wreck the negotiations?" "Will China take responsibility for his or her emissions?" "Will the US help poorer countries affect their burden of climate change?" The differential felt so huge, I could see no way I could bridge the 2 . It felt futile. i started to feel that I'd made an error . i started to urge depressed. But even therein moment, i noticed that what i used to be feeling had tons of similarities to what I'd felt once I first acknowledged about the climate crisis years before.
I'd spent many of my most youth as a Buddhist monk in my early 20s, but I left the monastic life,because even then, 20 years ago, I felt that the climate crisis was already a quickly unfolding emergency and that i wanted to try to to my part. But once I'd left and that i rejoined the planet , I checked out what I could control. it had been the few plenty of my very own emissions which of my immediate family, which party voted for each few years, whether I went on a march or two. then I checked out the problems that might determine the result , and that they were biggeopolitical negotiations, massive infrastructure spending plans, what everybody else did. The differential again felt so huge that i could not see any way that I could bridge it.
I kept trying to require action, but it didn't really stick. It felt futile. Now, we all know that this will be a standard experience for several people, and perhaps you've got had this experience. When faced with a huge challenge that we do not feel we've any agency or control over, our mind can do a touch trick to guard us. we do not wish to desire we're out of control facing big forces, so our mind will tell us,"Maybe it isn't that important.
Maybe it isn't happening within the way that folks say, anyway." Or, it plays down our own role. "There's nothing that you simply individually can do, so why try?" But there's something odd happening here. Is it really true that humans will only take sustained and dedicated action on a problem of paramount importance once they feel they need a high degree of control? check out these pictures. These people are care givers and nurses who are helping humanity face the corona virus COVID-19 because it has swept round the world as an epidemic within the previous couple of months. Are these people ready to prevent the spread of the disease?
Now, I firmly believe that the UN is of unparalleled importance within the world immediately to market collaboration and cooperation. But what they do not tell you once you join is that this essential work is delivered mainly within the sort of extremely boring meetings -- extremely long, boring meetings. Now, you'll feel that you simply have attended some long, boring meetings in your life, and i am sure you've got .
But these UN meetings are next-level, and everybody who works there approaches them with A level of calm normally only achieved by Zen masters. But myself, I wasn't ready for that. I joined expecting drama and tension and breakthrough. What I wasn't ready for was a process that appeared to move at the speed of a glacier, at the speed that a glacie rused to maneuver at. Now, within the middle of 1 of those long meetings, i used to be handed a note. And it had been handed to me by my friend and colleague and co-author, Christiana Figueres. Christiana was the chief Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on global climate change , and intrinsically , had overall responsibility for the UN reaching what would become the Paris Agreement. i used to be running political strategy for her.
So when she handed me this note, I assumed that it might contain detailed political instructions about how we were getting to get out of this nightmare quagmire that we appeared to be trapped in. I took the note and checked out it. It said, "Painful. But let's approach with love!" Now, i really like this note for many reasons. i really like the way the small tendrilsare beginning from the word "painful." it had been a very good visual depiction of how I felt at that moment. But I particularly like it because as I checked out it, i noticed that it had been a political instruction, which if we were getting to achieve success , this was how we were getting to roll in the hay . So let me explain that. What I'd been feeling in those meetings was actually about control. I had moved my life from Brooklyn in new york to Bonn in Germany with the extremely reluctant support of my wife. My children were now during a school where they couldn't speak the language, and that i thought the deal for all this disruption to my world was that i might have a point of control over what was getting to happen. I felt for years that the climate crisis is that the defining challenge of our generation, and here i used to be , able to play my part and do something for humanity. But I put my hands on the levers of control that I'd been given and pulled them, and zip happened. i noticed the items I could control were menial day-to-day things. "Do I ride my bike to work?"and "Where do I even have lunch?", whereas the items that were getting to determine whether we were getting to achieve success were issues like, "Will Russia wreck the negotiations?" "Will China take responsibility for his or her emissions?" "Will the US help poorer countries affect their burden of climate change?" The differential felt so huge, I could see no way I could bridge the 2 . It felt futile. i started to feel that I'd made an error . i started to urge depressed. But even therein moment, i noticed that what i used to be feeling had tons of similarities to what I'd felt once I first acknowledged about the climate crisis years before.
I'd spent many of my most youth as a Buddhist monk in my early 20s, but I left the monastic life,because even then, 20 years ago, I felt that the climate crisis was already a quickly unfolding emergency and that i wanted to try to to my part. But once I'd left and that i rejoined the planet , I checked out what I could control. it had been the few plenty of my very own emissions which of my immediate family, which party voted for each few years, whether I went on a march or two. then I checked out the problems that might determine the result , and that they were biggeopolitical negotiations, massive infrastructure spending plans, what everybody else did. The differential again felt so huge that i could not see any way that I could bridge it.
I kept trying to require action, but it didn't really stick. It felt futile. Now, we all know that this will be a standard experience for several people, and perhaps you've got had this experience. When faced with a huge challenge that we do not feel we've any agency or control over, our mind can do a touch trick to guard us. we do not wish to desire we're out of control facing big forces, so our mind will tell us,"Maybe it isn't that important.
Maybe it isn't happening within the way that folks say, anyway." Or, it plays down our own role. "There's nothing that you simply individually can do, so why try?" But there's something odd happening here. Is it really true that humans will only take sustained and dedicated action on a problem of paramount importance once they feel they need a high degree of control? check out these pictures. These people are care givers and nurses who are helping humanity face the corona virus COVID-19 because it has swept round the world as an epidemic within the previous couple of months. Are these people ready to prevent the spread of the disease?
No. Are they ready to prevent their patients from dying? Some, they're going to are ready to prevent, but others, it'll are beyond their control.
Does that make their contribution futile and meaningless? Actually, it's offensive even to suggest that. What they're doing is caring for his or her fellow citizenry at their moment of greatest vulnerability. which work has huge meaning, to the purpose where I only need to show you those pictures for it to become evident that the courage and humanity those people are demonstrating makes their worksome of the foremost meaningful things which will be done as citizenry , albe it they can not control the result . Now, that's interesting, because it shows us that humans are capable of taking dedicated and sustained action, even once they can't control the result . But it leaves us with another challenge.
With the climate crisis, the action that we Take is separated from the impact of it, whereas what's happening with these images is these nurses are being sustained not by the lofty goal of adjusting the planet but by the day-to-day satisfaction of caring for an additional person through their moments of weakness. With the climate crisis,we have this huge separation. It wont to be that we were separated by time. The impacts of the climate crisis were alleged to be way off within the future.
But immediately , the longer term has come to satisfy us. Continents are ablaze . Cities are going underwater. Countries are going underwater. many thousands of individuals are on the move as a results of global climate change . But albeit those impacts are not any longer separated from us by time, they're still separated from us during a way that creates it difficult to feel that direct connection.
They happen elsewhere to somebody else or to us during a different way than we're wont to experiencing it. So albeit that story of the nurse demonstrates something to us about attribute , we're getting to have find a special way of handling the climate crisis during a sustained manner.
With the climate crisis, the action that we Take is separated from the impact of it, whereas what's happening with these images is these nurses are being sustained not by the lofty goal of adjusting the planet but by the day-to-day satisfaction of caring for an additional person through their moments of weakness. With the climate crisis,we have this huge separation. It wont to be that we were separated by time. The impacts of the climate crisis were alleged to be way off within the future.
But immediately , the longer term has come to satisfy us. Continents are ablaze . Cities are going underwater. Countries are going underwater. many thousands of individuals are on the move as a results of global climate change . But albeit those impacts are not any longer separated from us by time, they're still separated from us during a way that creates it difficult to feel that direct connection.
They happen elsewhere to somebody else or to us during a different way than we're wont to experiencing it. So albeit that story of the nurse demonstrates something to us about attribute , we're getting to have find a special way of handling the climate crisis during a sustained manner.
There is how that we will do that , a strong combinationof a deep and supporting attitude that when combinedwith consistent action can enable whole societies to require dedicated action during a sustained way towards a shared goal. it has been wont to great effect throughout history. So let me offer you a historical story to elucidate it.
Right now, i'm standing within the woodsnear my range in southern England. And these particular woods aren't faraway from London.
Eighty years ago,that city was under fire . within the late 1930s, the people of england would do anything to avoid facing the truth that Hitler would stop at nothing to overcome Europe. Fresh with memories from the primary war , they were scared of Nazi aggression and would do anything to avoid facing that reality. within the end, the truth broke through. Churchill is remembered for several things,and not all of them positive, but what he did in those youth of the war was he changed the story the people of england told themselves about what they were doing and what was to return . Where previously there had been trepidation and nervousness and fear, there came a relaxed resolve, an island alone, a greatest hour, a greatest generation, a rustic that might fight them on the beaches and within the hills and within the streets, a rustic that might never surrender.
That change from fear and trepidation to facing the truth , whatever it had been and however dark it had been , had nothing to try to to with the likelihood of winning the war. There was no news from the front that battles were going better or maybe at that time that a strong new ally had joined the fight and altered the chances in their favor. it had been simply a choice.
Eighty years ago,that city was under fire . within the late 1930s, the people of england would do anything to avoid facing the truth that Hitler would stop at nothing to overcome Europe. Fresh with memories from the primary war , they were scared of Nazi aggression and would do anything to avoid facing that reality. within the end, the truth broke through. Churchill is remembered for several things,and not all of them positive, but what he did in those youth of the war was he changed the story the people of england told themselves about what they were doing and what was to return . Where previously there had been trepidation and nervousness and fear, there came a relaxed resolve, an island alone, a greatest hour, a greatest generation, a rustic that might fight them on the beaches and within the hills and within the streets, a rustic that might never surrender.
That change from fear and trepidation to facing the truth , whatever it had been and however dark it had been , had nothing to try to to with the likelihood of winning the war. There was no news from the front that battles were going better or maybe at that time that a strong new ally had joined the fight and altered the chances in their favor. it had been simply a choice.
A deep, determined, stubborn sort of optimism emerged, not avoiding or denying the darkness that was pressing in but refusing to be cowed by it. That stubborn optimism is powerful. it's not hooked in to assuming that the result goes to be good or having a sort of illusion about the longer term .
However, what it does is it animates action and infuses it with meaning. we all know that from that point , despite the danger and despite the challenge, it had been a meaningful time filled with purpose, and multiple accounts have confirmed that actions that ranged from pilots within the Battle of england to the straightforward act of pulling potatoes from the soil became infused with meaning.
However, what it does is it animates action and infuses it with meaning. we all know that from that point , despite the danger and despite the challenge, it had been a meaningful time filled with purpose, and multiple accounts have confirmed that actions that ranged from pilots within the Battle of england to the straightforward act of pulling potatoes from the soil became infused with meaning.
They were animated towards a shared purpose and a shared outcome. we've seen that throughout history. This coupling of a deep and determined stubborn optimism with action, when the optimism results in a determined action, then they will become self-sustaining: without the stubborn optimism,the action doesn't sustain itself; without the action, the stubborn optimism is simply an attitude. the 2 together can transforman entire issue and alter the planet .
We saw this at multiple other times. We saw it when Parks refused to urge up from the bus. We saw it in Gandhi's long salt marches to the beach. We saw it when the suffragettes said that"Courage calls to courage everywhere." and that we saw it when Kennedy said that within 10 years, he would put a person on the moon. That electrified a generation and focused them on a shared goal against a dark and frightening adversary, albeit they didn't skills they might achieve it. In each of those cases, a sensible and gritty but determined, stubborn optimism wasn't the results of success. it had been the explanation for it. that's also how the transformation happened on the road to the Paris Agreement.
Those challenging, difficult,pessimistic meetings transformed as more and more people decided that this was our moment to dig in and determine that we might not drop the ball on our watch, and that we would deliver the result that we knew was possible. More and more people transformed themselves thereto perspective and commenced to figure , and within the end, that worked its high into a wave of momentum that crashed over us and delivered many of these challenging issues with a far better outcome than we could possibly have imagined. And even now, years later and with a climate denier within the White House, much that was put in motion in those days remains unfolding, and that we have everything to play for within the coming months and years on handling the climate crisis. So immediately , we are coming through one among the foremost challenging periods within the lives of most folks .
We saw this at multiple other times. We saw it when Parks refused to urge up from the bus. We saw it in Gandhi's long salt marches to the beach. We saw it when the suffragettes said that"Courage calls to courage everywhere." and that we saw it when Kennedy said that within 10 years, he would put a person on the moon. That electrified a generation and focused them on a shared goal against a dark and frightening adversary, albeit they didn't skills they might achieve it. In each of those cases, a sensible and gritty but determined, stubborn optimism wasn't the results of success. it had been the explanation for it. that's also how the transformation happened on the road to the Paris Agreement.
Those challenging, difficult,pessimistic meetings transformed as more and more people decided that this was our moment to dig in and determine that we might not drop the ball on our watch, and that we would deliver the result that we knew was possible. More and more people transformed themselves thereto perspective and commenced to figure , and within the end, that worked its high into a wave of momentum that crashed over us and delivered many of these challenging issues with a far better outcome than we could possibly have imagined. And even now, years later and with a climate denier within the White House, much that was put in motion in those days remains unfolding, and that we have everything to play for within the coming months and years on handling the climate crisis. So immediately , we are coming through one among the foremost challenging periods within the lives of most folks .
The global pandemic has been frightening, whether personal tragedy has been involved or not. But it's also shaken our belief that we are powerless within the face of great change. within the space of a couple of weeks, we mobilized to the purpose where half humanity took drastic action to guard the foremost vulnerable. If we're capable of that, maybe we've not yet tested the bounds of what humanity can do when it rises to satisfy a shared challenge.
We now got to move beyond this narrative of powerlessness, because make no mistake -- the climate crisis are going to be orders of magnitude worse than the pandemic if we don't take the action that we will still fancy avert the tragedy that we see coming towards us. we will not afford the posh of feeling powerless. the reality is that future generations will reminisce at this precise moment with as we stand at the crossroads between a regenerative future and one where we've thrown it all away. and therefore the truth is that tons goes pretty much for us during this transition. Costs for clean energy are coming down. Cities are transforming.Land is being regenerated.
People are on the streets calling for change with a verve and tenacity we've not seen for a generation. Genuine success is feasible during this transition, and genuine failure is feasible , too, which makes this the foremost exciting time to be alive. we'll take a choice immediately that we will approach this challenge with a stubborn sort of gritty,realistic and determined optimism and do everything within our power to make sure that we shape the trail as we begin of this pandemic towards a regenerative future. we'll all decide that we will be hopeful beacons for humanity albeit there are dark days ahead, and that we can decide that we'll be responsible, we'll reduce our own emissions by a minimum of 50 percent within the next 10 years, and that we will take action to interact with governments and corporations to make sure they are doing what's necessary beginning of the pandemic to rebuild the planet that we would like them to. Right now, all of those things are possible. So let's return thereto boring meeting room where I'm watching that note from Christiana. and searching at it took me back to a number of the foremost transformative experiences of my life.
We now got to move beyond this narrative of powerlessness, because make no mistake -- the climate crisis are going to be orders of magnitude worse than the pandemic if we don't take the action that we will still fancy avert the tragedy that we see coming towards us. we will not afford the posh of feeling powerless. the reality is that future generations will reminisce at this precise moment with as we stand at the crossroads between a regenerative future and one where we've thrown it all away. and therefore the truth is that tons goes pretty much for us during this transition. Costs for clean energy are coming down. Cities are transforming.Land is being regenerated.
People are on the streets calling for change with a verve and tenacity we've not seen for a generation. Genuine success is feasible during this transition, and genuine failure is feasible , too, which makes this the foremost exciting time to be alive. we'll take a choice immediately that we will approach this challenge with a stubborn sort of gritty,realistic and determined optimism and do everything within our power to make sure that we shape the trail as we begin of this pandemic towards a regenerative future. we'll all decide that we will be hopeful beacons for humanity albeit there are dark days ahead, and that we can decide that we'll be responsible, we'll reduce our own emissions by a minimum of 50 percent within the next 10 years, and that we will take action to interact with governments and corporations to make sure they are doing what's necessary beginning of the pandemic to rebuild the planet that we would like them to. Right now, all of those things are possible. So let's return thereto boring meeting room where I'm watching that note from Christiana. and searching at it took me back to a number of the foremost transformative experiences of my life.
One of the various things I learned as a monk is that a bright mind and a joyful heart is both the trail and therefore the goal in life. This stubborn optimism may be a sort of applied love. it's both the planet we would like to make and therefore the way in which we can create that world. And it's a choice for all folks .
Choosing to face this moment with stubborn optimism can fill our lives with meaning and purpose, and in doing so, we will put a handon the arc of history and bend it towards the longer term that we elect . Yes, living now feels out of control. It feels frightening and scary and new.
But let's not falterat this most vital of transitions that's coming at us immediately . Let's face it with stubborn and determined optimism. Yes, seeing the changes within the world immediately are often painful. But let's approach it amorously.
Choosing to face this moment with stubborn optimism can fill our lives with meaning and purpose, and in doing so, we will put a handon the arc of history and bend it towards the longer term that we elect . Yes, living now feels out of control. It feels frightening and scary and new.
But let's not falterat this most vital of transitions that's coming at us immediately . Let's face it with stubborn and determined optimism. Yes, seeing the changes within the world immediately are often painful. But let's approach it amorously.
Thank you.
