Here’s to Hopin’

It’s easy to lose hope in the struggle for equality and justice for women, as well as any other oppressed group. However, there is nothing worse than feeling defeated and giving up. If everyone gives up, nothing gets done.

With that said, I recently had the pleasure of reading an article by Colin Beavan, writer and documentary producer of No Impact Man. He also is an avid blogger and if you type “No Impact Man” into your google search engine, his blog will pop up. If you haven’t yet seen this documentary, please do. It’s extremely empowering and well-produced. And it will give you hope. Also, it’s free on Netflix, so that’s a plus!

To summarize, the documentary follows a man, Colin Beavan, and his wife and baby daughter on their year journey to produce as small an environmental footprint as possible. The paragraph at the top of his blog describes such as saying, “A blog by Colin Beavan about what each of us can do to end our environmental crisis, make a better place to live for ourselves and everyone else, and hopefully come up with a happier way of life along the way”. Beavan succeeded in his mission, as seen in the movie.

In my environmental justice class, we often watch depressing movies, and discuss topics that are seemingly hopeless. With what is going on in Japan currently, I think people need to be reminded that there is still hope and ways to reach success. These ways can only come from trying.

This is the link to the compelling article by Beavan. I encourage you all to read it in its entirety, it’s worth it.

In any event, I’d like to get at the main points of the article.

Basically, Beavan starts out by saying that everyone has great ideas to make some sort of impact on the world. Yet, we tuck these ideas away ‘due to feelings of fear and stupidity. If our ideas were any good, someone else would have thought of it and acted on it already, am I right?

No, you’re not right. Everyone shares these thoughts so little is done in the world to end people’s frustration. People just continue to sit on their lazy asses and wait for someone else to do something. How is this logical?

Well, Beavan wasn’t about to sit and wait around anymore. He didn’t think he could change the world, he was only one man, but he sure could change his way of life. He didn’t even realize he was being an activist by monitoring his environmental behavior, but he had a huge impact, indeed.

Beavan’s advice for the above feelings of stupidity is this: “Be Stupid Enough to Take the First Step”

He then uses one of the most inspiring (in my opinion) metaphors I have ever heard. “Two frogs—one very smart and one very stupid—are caught in a bowl of cream. The sides are too steep to climb and they have no foothold to jump. The stupid one begins to swim as hard and fast as he can. The smart one looks over and says to himself, “He’s too stupid to know that all that effort will make no difference.”

Having weighed the hopelessness of the situation, the smart one decides that the most intelligent thing is to give up. So—Blub!—he drowns. The stupid one keeps trying. Just when his legs are about to give out the cream starts to get thicker. His struggling has churned the cream to butter. He’s surprised to find himself on solid ground. He jumps out. By stupidly pursuing the first step (swimming), the second step (jumping out) appeared, as if by magic.

The question is not whether you can make a difference. The question is, do you want to be the person who tries? Do you want to be like the smart frog, who relies on the brain that tells him there is no solution, or the stupid frog, whose heart tells him to try anyway?”

I’ll leave you with this and hope you read the rest of the article and watch the movie. This doesn’t only pertain to environmental justice. This could work with ANYTHING. Be the person who takes the steps toward equality between genders. You may fall flat on your ass a few times at first, and people may shoot down your ideas, but don’t you want to be the person who tries? Hell, you could end up with a famous documentary, just for (as you may see it) a small change in YOUR attitude and demeanor. Beavan says, at the end of his film, the best form of activism is to build community. He joined some environmental justice awareness groups and helped plant trees among many other things.

How are you going to contribute? What changes are you going to make?