Newsletter #15

Why What We're For Matters More Than What We're Against

Hi there,

I hope you’re well and enjoying the summer as it unfolds. It’s been a busy time for me with a mixture of holidays on the one hand and new and exciting projects and conversations on the other.

It was as part of those new projects that something interesting cropped up this week. In two separate conversations, people introduced themselves to me as being ‘anti-something’. Both were amazingly passionately people. Both were so warm and welcoming. And both struck me as people I want to get to know and work with. But because these two people had quite different perspectives on things, it struck me that if they introduced themselves to each other with their ‘anti-something’ pronouncements the conversation would have stopped dead.

And that got me thinking about this issue in a bit more detail. It seems that we're really good at knowing what we don't want. But we're not so good at articulating what we actually do want.

The Appeal of Opposition

There's something deeply human about defining ourselves in opposition to something. In all honesty, it’s much easier. Take spirituality, for example. It’s much easier to say “I’m anti-religion” or “I’m atheist”, than trying to describe a belief system that meets your particular view of life.

Opposition to something gives us clarity. It rallies us. It creates an immediate sense of identity and belonging. But herein lies the first problem of articulating an ‘anti-something’ stance. By bringing part of your belief system out in the open using an ‘anti’ statement, you may well be attacking someone else’s identity.

Our beliefs are aligned with our identity. The stronger the beliefs, the deeper they are lodged at the heart of our identity. That means if you are anti-something, you run the risk of being anti-somebody. You may think you’re opposing a concept but you may actually be making a personal attack.

To continue our ‘anti-religion’ example, it might be that case that saying we’re ‘anti-religion’ in our predominantly secular society is seen as an acceptable thing to do. But deeply religious people might feel attacked. Religion is at the heart of their identity. And the big problem with this is that people who feel attacked tend to attack back. Conflict is created. Conversations fall into arguments. And nothing good emerges from that energy.

Meaning and Misunderstanding

The second problem with taking an ‘anti-something’ stance is the nuance behind that stance.

Take ‘anti-establishment’ for example.

There is a progressive form of ‘anti-establishment’. In this form of ‘anti-ness’, people see the establishment as old white men in suits. Corporate boardrooms. Traditional power structures that have excluded voices, hoarded wealth, perpetuated systemic inequalities. For these people anti-establishment energy flows toward dismantling hierarchies, redistributing power, creating space for marginalised communities.

Then there is a conservative form of ‘anti-establishment’. In this form of ‘anti-ness’, people see the establishment as the growing majority of do-gooders, university professors, Hollywood celebrities, business leaders and mainstream media who are constantly pushing forward reforms for a greener and fairer world. Their anti-establishment energy flows toward preserving traditional values, reclaiming cultural territory, and protecting what feels like disappearing ways of life.

We say what we’re used to hearing. If we surround ourselves with people who think exactly the way we think, and talk exactly the way we talk, we just assume people know what we mean by our ‘anti-something’ statement. But if we’re talking to new people, who don’t know the way we think, and we proclaim our ‘anti-something’ stance without explaining the nuance of exactly which part of the ‘something’ we’re against and why, we run the risk of claiming to be against something we’re actually for.

What We Resist, Persists

The third problem with taking an ‘anti-something’ stance is that it focuses too much energy on the one thing we’re against. And this is probably the biggest problem of all. Because focusing on the something that we’re against doesn’t make that something disappear. In fact, it makes that something bigger in our awareness.

And that makes it bigger in our reality.

To make the point, I want you to adopt a vehement ‘anti-yellow’ stance for a day. Feel how deeply abhorrent the colour yellow is. How it stands in opposition of all you hold dear and true. As you go about your day I suspect you’ll be surprised just how much of the world this evil colour has taken over. Much more than you’d ever noticed before.

When we organise our energy around opposition, we inadvertently keep the thing we oppose at the centre of our attention. We become experts in the very object we claim to reject. We study its flaws. We catalog its failures. We notice it everywhere. We build our identity around not being it.

And meanwhile, the alternative vision - the thing we actually want to create - remains fuzzy and underdeveloped. What colour world would we rather see if it isn’t yellow? Purple? Orange?

Focusing on what we don’t want is draining. It brings us down. And we get reminded of its negative impact on us all the time. Surely there is another way to encourage the change we want to see in the world.

Beyond the Hamster Wheel of Resistance

There is another way. We don’t have to expend all our energy fighting something. Resisting something. We could, instead, be for something. Pro-something.

It requires more effort from us initially but, ultimately, it's a more sustainable, a more powerful and a more productive way of being.

It all starts with a different question: How do I actually want to experience my life? Not just what I want to avoid, but what do I want to create.

This isn't about building a bigger business, or achieving greater career success, or finding deeper relationships, or even changing the world to be a better place. This is something deeper. This is about experiencing the life you want to live, and crucially, identifying the person you need to become to live that life.

Once we find ourselves working towards the type of person we want to ‘be’ rather than focusing on the type world we don’t want to ‘see’, we find we’re much better equipped to do the work we feel passionate about.

As Mahatma Gandhi once famously said “Be the change you want to see.”

This is such good advice as it stops us from judging others. It replaces complaining about others with self-reflection. And it stirs us into taking action by changing the only thing in the world over which we have any control: ourselves.

Interestingly, Gandhi didn’t actually say those exact words (although they are exceptionally good words). These are the words he actually said;

“We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.”

I love these words. They really hit a note for me. Maybe not quite as memorable as ‘Be the change you want to see’ but much more profound. Much deeper. And it reminds us that all the change we want to see starts within us. 

Creating a Collective Vision

Imagine if everybody adopted this philosophy. Imagine if the whole world had a clear idea of the life they wanted to lead, the world they wanted to experience, and they then set about working on themselves to manifest that change.

I can’t see this happening any day soon. We've somehow lost the ability to dream together. To sit down as groups, as communities, as industries, and ask each other: What do we want to build here together? What are we all for?

Unfortunately, we seem to we've adopted the ‘anti-something’ route. We’ve become really good at criticism. We can tear apart any new idea, any new proposal, any new system with surgical precision. We’ve developed a culture of sophisticated opposition. Understandably so - it’s much easier that way.

Creation of a vision requires a different set of skills. It requires us to be vulnerable with our hopes. To risk looking naive or unrealistic. To admit that we don't have all the answers but we're willing to experiment, to try, to fail, to go again.

When was the last time you were part of a conversation that wasn't anchored on what's wrong, but about what could be right? Not about what we're fighting against, but what we want to build toward? That was willing to give something a go rather than to do nothing for fear of getting it wrong?

The Personal Practice of Proactive Living

Luckily we don’t have to wait for the world to adopt a new way of being. We can start now. As Gandhi so eloquently puts it, this type of shift starts with us. Within us. It starts with each of us getting clearer about our own proactive vision. About understanding who we want to be and how we can show up in the world as ‘pro-something’.

One idea that I came across the other day speaks to this approach. Instead of starting your day by checking what's going wrong in the world, spend a few minutes getting clear on what you want to experience that day. Don’t just make a list of all the things you want to achieve. Ponder on the quality of experience you want to have. And then alongside your ‘daily to do’ list, create a ‘daily to be’ list. And tick them off as the day unfolds.

The Invitation Forward

So that’s where my curiosity has taken me this week. I’m not sure I have got to the bottom of this topic. Maybe you could help me out with your own musings. I guess my observation is that anything ‘anti’ inherently carries negative energy. And anything pro is much more positive. So my question is, what if we spent as much energy articulating our proactive vision as we do our reactive opposition?

What if we got as specific about what we want to create as we are about what we want to destroy?

What if we developed the same passion for building alternatives as we have for critiquing existing systems?

This isn't about choosing sides in some political or cultural war. It's about recognising that creation and destruction require different kinds of energy, and we've really good at one while neglecting the other.

The world needs people who can see what's possible. Who can hold a vision of what we're moving toward, not just what we're moving away from. Who can inspire others not through opposition, but through the magnetic pull of a better alternative.

That starts with each of us getting clear on our own answer to that simple yet difficult question: what are you for?

The revolution we need isn't against something. It's toward something. And it begins the moment we stop defining ourselves by what we oppose and start creating what we propose.

And the most important work is changing ourselves.

Can you imagine making that shift in your own life? In your business? In your community? Exactly what are you for?

The answer to that question might just change everything.

Until next time,

Simon