being careful not to let small progress trigger despondency instead of relief
Transcript of this video:
The other day, Jon Alexander posted a report on an exercise in something called Deliberative Democracy.
That’s a process where a sample of citizens are gathered together to explore a controversial issue in a process that gives them more factual information and space for a slower and more informed debate.
And the optimistic outcome of this, I felt, was that when presented with information in this way they seem to take the threat of change more seriously and to be much more open to the kind of changes that might be necessary to meet it.
And that’s good news.
And I noticed that as I read it, although my brain was thinking good news, in my body, I was experiencing something that really felt, to be honest, more like a kind of despair or sadness.
And I sat with that a little while and I realised, I think I know this phenomenon. Do you know, sometimes you’ve been out in winter in the cold and you come back into a warm house. That’s when you shiver.
That’s when you realise how cold you’ve been, because the contrast with the warm is so strong.
And I think sometimes if we’re wrestling with something difficult and we get a little bit of relief, instead of staying with a sense of relief, we may find ourself investing more in the uncomfortable contrast reaction and focus more on the problem from which this is a little bit of relief.
And I think that that can often interrupt our progress.
Now I, as you may have noticed from these videos, I’m increasingly interested in how change comes to us… life comes to us… in little parcels that, that we sometimes miss.
And I think if we want to see progress, whatever progress means to you personally, I think it’s gonna help to get a little bit better at being more sensitive to, maybe more appreciative of those small positive changes when we come across them.
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
