Most people, when thinking
about having something be sustainable, will tend to think in terms of a
perpetual motion machine. In other words, something will be sustainable if I
can just figure out the “code” that makes the thing (a relationship, a
business, a product, a high performing team) run and then make sure that the
"code" is in place and operating. The problem with this way of thinking is manifold.
Foremost is that approaching an event with this orientation will often result
in attempting to maintain the status quo – to keep in place the things that seem to be
making this work. Unfortunately, natural, growing, healthy systems
require change in order to thrive. Paradoxically, trying to maintain the status
quo, while very compelling, is often the surest way to doom something that is
working.
An alternative way of
approaching sustainability is to think of it in terms of developing the
capacity to continuously start over. This is a fundamentally different
approach to success, to life and to living. The capacity to continuously
start over...this is an approach that is well and elegantly suited to
keeping my ideals in motion.
In upcoming postings I’ll be parsing this notion a
bit. Particularly, I’ll be looking at the core elements of this approach -
capacity and starting over. Neither of which are as straightforward as many
would think.
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