Collective Concern

My blog posts have revolved around the understanding that by using appropriate motivation strategies, we can develop strategically designed habits, which steers us to self-transformation.  I want us to experience these transformations for our own individual health, happiness and welfare.  Yet, my intentions in this blog are to demonstrate to my audience that these strategies can be used to reduce our environment impact and encourage our propensity for collective action.  At several points in my life, particularly during college, I was very involved in various organizations and lead or participated in several demonstrations.  Being the leader or participant of an organization is a space for so many things I enjoy: learning new things, talking to people, being connected to a cause and so on.  But, I remember my favorite part about participating in collective action was the way I felt afterwards; I felt satisfied somehow and awake or mindful… I felt empowered.  This sense of empowerment is not to be taken lightly, it’s to be reveled in and utilized.  Feelings of empowerment are so special that I find myself wishing I could reproduce this particular kind of inspired motivation on command.  As I said, I used to be very committed to organizations, so I was engaged in collective action frequently.  My peers’ energy re-invigorated my energy and my commitment to the causes I stand for, like minimizing my environmental impact and recycling.  At the time, I didn’t consider my participation in collective action to be a habit, but it was.  I was involved in various organizations for years throughout my high school, college and professional career when I lived in my home state.  When I moved to Kansas that part of my life virtually disappeared.  It took doing research for my blog to understand the full weight of this change in my life.  Like a flash of lightening, or eureka moment, I suddenly realized how different my life had become since my move to Kansas.  Without participating in socially minded organizations, I had lost the feeling of empowerment that I treasured for all those years.  For purposes of this blog, I have been monitoring my behavior and choices with regards to many things, particularly my environmental impact.  Yet, I hadn’t extended this logic to my lapse in collective participation.  The more I considered the last few years, the more I recognized how self- interested my behavior had become.  I moved to Kansas for graduate school scholarships and became quickly consumed with my studies, working through school and family complications.  As I reflected about this matter, I came to realize that I felt uncomfortable participating in collective action.  Perhaps it’s because I am less familiar with Kansas than my home state or because I have had a lot going on personally and academically.  But the truth is that these are all excuses and I am unfamiliar with the now foreign idea of acting in a collective.  Individualism is so thoroughly supported in our society that we are exceedingly more comfortable alone than we are participating in a collective.  What is unknown is unnerving.  Yet, there are so many reasons why we should overcome our apprehension.

My research into habit formation and my personal monitoring experiences have led me to understand that we should pay close attention to any occasion in which we start or stop something important and habitual in our lives.  I neglected to monitor the changes that occurred in my life when I moved and became a graduate student.  I didn’t really notice that I stopped participating in organization and demonstrations entirely.  Instead, I rationalized that loosing this important area of my life was a consequential sacrifice due to my waning free time.  Starting something new such as moving to a new place, changing accommodations, getting married, and planning a big trip, changing jobs and so on are all periods in our lives that can change our lives dramatically.  Specifically, these changes can be an opportunity to develop new, healthy habits.  On the other hand, these changes in life can cause disruptive periods that weaken our habits.

I never considered my participation in organizations and demonstrations to be a habit, but I habitually engaged in these activities.  As I mentioned, my participation fostered empowerment for change.  I felt much more capable of influencing social issues and partaking in a collective when I was continually engaged.  Once we have started a healthy habit, it’s crucial to follow through, don’t reduce and never stop your habit commitments.  Research explains that trying to re-start a habit we have lost is usually tougher than starting a new habit.  There is an energy in new possibilities that is challenging to replicate the second time around.  There are so many tempting triggers we can succumb to that change weaken our will.  Once we let ourselves slip into the decision making process, we lose the fundamental benefit of habits.  Making the decision to exercise or recycle requires energy, breeds guilt and reverts progress.

Keep in mind that there are going to be several habits in our lives that continue to be fragile and frustrating.  For many people, I can see participating in a collective to fall under this difficult habit category.  Volunteering time for environmental organizations for instance is a superior habit, but it may take continual reinforcement to satisfy.  I was talking with a friend about habit development and she brought up her impression that habit formation implies…indefinitely or Forever.   Forever can seem intimidating, but the habit timelines are up to the user.  While we struggle through adapting a habit into our routine, it is often helpful to tell yourself that the change is temporary.  Yet, after giving up chocolate for a year or composting wasted food for 12 weeks many people can in a way ‘trick themselves’ into developing a lifetime habit.

As I explained earlier, a major life change can be a great occasion for habit development.  A new job can breed a new sleep and exercise schedule.  Moving to a new place can extend one’s social circle or improve one’s household organization.  Even heart breaking changes can induce the same kind of opportunity for a clean slate.  There is something about big lifetime changes that make us feel anew, perhaps even empowered to change.  Let’s say that an employee wants to stop constantly working late.  It is easier to make this change when we start a new job, as opposed to going changing your established exit time in an existing job.  This brings up another point, the first few times we do something new we should monitor our choices closely.  Whether we are in the midst of a lifetime change or developing a new habit, we are molding our habits most of all in the beginning of the process.  Often there are triggers in our life that disrupt our typical schedule.  When one of my best friends moved home, I suddenly noticed that I ate less fresh fruits and vegetables.  We went to pick up our co-op food together and without her I lost my motivating trigger to sustain this habit.

This discussion about habits is indicative of my newfound discomfort with collective participation.  In moving to Kansas, a lot of things about my life changed.  But it was a bit shocking to reflect and realize how many important habits in my life were upheld through familiarity and triggers.  I wanted my habit foundation to be stronger than my location or one friend.  I want to become comfortable with collective participation again and I don’t want it to be contingent on where I live and who I know.  I want to do it for myself and for my environment.  Discomfort is disconcerting, but if I tell myself that the experience isn’t forever and can bring about previously experienced sources of pleasure (feeling empowered,) I feel more tolerant to the experience.