Let’s get this on the table: I’m completely behind peaceful protests for change, and absolutely agree that change is vitally necessary for the planet to get through the current challenges. I think that what is happening now is amazing and deeply hopeful for the future of our planet.

Here’s where I have a few things to say, though, about personal responsibility and creating change: Change is a steep climb. It always has been and I suspect it always will be. It’s important to recognize that while it is helpful to have people at the bottom of the slope encouraging the climbers; it is more helpful to have a lot of people making the climb.

If you are yelling for change, I hope that you are also looking deeply into your own heart and life to see what positive change you can create. If you haven’t done that, you should stay home and take care of that before you hit the streets to yell at someone else to make the changes.

 My grandfather was disabled from an injury sustained while he was involved in the union movement when it was just beginning.  My grandmother had to go to work, and in her generation that wasn’t an easy thing. They never thrived financially, and my grandfather died relatively young.  He was just one of the thousands of people who sacrificed for change, and it forever changed his life.

 I was very young when he died, so I have no idea if he looked back on that moment as his waterloo or his peak. I hope it was his peak, his moment when he realized that no matter how painful, his contribution was a gift to millions of lives to follow.

We are once again at a place where we can impact billions of lives that will follow ours, as well as the immediate future for ourselves and our families. It’s important, I think, to be really conscious during this process.

 It is really easy to point a finger and declare that if only this or that were different, you could have what you need. It is much harder to envision, create and sustain a system that answers the needs of all the people, as well as the needs of our planet.

Political systems are broken, economic systems are crippled and our planet is breaking under the strain of billions of people all wanting more “stuff”.  Pointing the finger at the “bad guys” is necessary, and shining a light on the things that seem most problematic serves to focus energy on fixing them. What is equally necessary, and perhaps more effective, is also pointing the finger on the “good guys”. There are a lot of them out there.

There are some of you out there that are AMAZING. You have real ideas, real solutions and, in your own small way, you are doing what you can to make a difference by making small sacrifices in your personal lives.  I LOVE YOU GUYS! The wonderful thing is this; there are a LOT of you out there like that. So, at these places, find each other.  Work together.  Create the things that you want to see in our world. Or come here http://cloveclearly.com/cccafe and find each other.

The other thing that I am amazed and overjoyed to discover is that there are a lot of businesses being created by conscious business people that bridge the gap between the old and the new. We don’t have to throw it all out. We can amend it to work in our world. Hometown Farms is coming to my area, and boy, am I excited about that. It’s being brought by a local business person who sees a way to bring good to his community and create a viable business. There are a lot of good things like that happening everywhere. Check them out.

So, if you are out there protesting against what isn’t working, please spend at least as much energy in supporting what is working. Find the green shoots in your own neighborhood and support those efforts. If you can’t find those things in your own neighborhood, create them.  Be the change, bring the change. It’s not just about standing in the streets yelling for someone else to do it. 

Here’s where I get a little bit crazy. If you don’t recycle, don’t go protest. Stay home and figure out recycling.  If you own a home and never grew your own vegetables, stay home and plant something. If you have more than one television in your home, stay home and look at all your “stuff” and ask yourself if maybe you aren’t part of the problem. If you have health issues that could be made better by a change in lifestyle, but you’ve not made those changes in yourself, stay home and start those changes, now.  If you waste resources, don’t care about your neighbor and are heading to the streets to “get yours”, go home and look long and hard in the mirror and ask yourself if you really want to be that person.

You see, it’s the cumulative effect of all of our small changes that will create the big changes. You can pnt your finger all you want at the big bad wolf, but if you are still feeding it, nothing will change.   When you stop feeding the wolf, when you start feeding the thing you want to grow, that’s when it happens. Go and protest. But then come home and feed the thing you want to grow.