The virtue of imperfection
October 27, 2008
Posted by CindyW in : Green Journal , 6 comments
Last week I went to a parent-teacher conference for my 6 year old. The teacher explained to me that, one of the challenges kids at this tender age faced was frustration with their own imperfection. The letters were not written uniformly, the spellings were not always correct and the math came out wrong sometimes.
“They get very frustrated with themselves sometimes,” Ms A told me the downside of trying to be perfect. Interesting, I thought. I did observe my 6-year old grunting and throwing herself on the floor because she could not make all her written words leveled.
I must have out grown that, whew! Lucky me, I was relieved. I tolerate 15% imperfections in many things I do. No wonder I love Oscar Wilde who so enjoyed lavishing on human imperfections.
Wait, but being content with imperfection has also separated me from Bill Gates (okay fine, among 1769 other things). Our house is perpetually only sort of clean, my meals are just edible, and I am mostly on time to any given event. It seems that the only area that I go beyond sorta-kinda-good-enough is my work.
How much should we tolerate imperfection? When does the tolerance become just an excuse for not trying hard. Is 85% is right cut off line for good enough? 95%?
I suspect everyone has her/his own threshold.
I started line dry our laundry a couple of months ago. But my family objects to the stiff and scratch towels. So we’ve reached a compromise – using the dryer for one load of laundry of which the fluffiness is demanded. Sometimes due to poor planning, I have to dry a load at night. Some weeks I do much better than other weeks. Collectively my laundry has been line dried 85% of the time.
For the most part, we get our food from our local farmers’ market, mostly organic. We still go out to eat at least every other week, sometimes once a week. A lot of the ingredients of restaurant food are neither local nor organic – no point of fooling myself. Not being an organic locavore all the time is okay. I’ve given myself the permission not to be a purist.
Most of the time I walk or bike to our local bakery to get coffee and a bagel. Some days I am in a hurry or am simply in an autopilot mode, I drive there. After chastising myself a bit, I usually don’t to feel guilty for long.
It seems that 85% is where my threshold hovers around. For now it works. Strangely not expecting perfection keeps me from giving up on my efforts.
Perhaps that is the reason that I have a hard time participating in challenges, which frequently require that additional 15% effort. It’d be too easy to beat myself up for not getting the perfect outcome.
If trying to get to 100% kicks the joy out of being green or renders 99% accomplishment a failure, is it worth it?
Mostly, this is just my weak justification for not trying harder. But also, don’t you feel better about yourself now? Don’t let the imperfection stop you from trying and trying some more.
Maybe some day I will drag myself to the 95% finish line. But for right now, I am hanging out in the good-enough zone.
CindyW at Organicpicks
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Autopilot reset
October 20, 2008
Posted by CindyW in : Green Journal , 6 comments
“No, I’d like you to change my profile. No, I want compact cars,” my husband was visibly flustered after 15 minutes of conversation with a representative from a national car rental company.
I could tell what he wanted to say, “How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t want your upgrades.” But he controlled himself.
My husband is a regular business traveler and rents cars from a particular national car rental company that is in virtually every U.S. airport, big or small. Often, when he gets to the counter, he is told that his reservation for a compact car is no longer available. “Fortunate” for him, he is getting an upgrade, varying from a luxury car, a truck, a minivan to a Hummer. But right there at the counter he doesn’t feel so grateful. He wants his reservation to be honored, because he doesn’t want to lug himself and only himself around in a minivan.
“When I complain at the counter, I always get the look – like hey we are giving you a Grand Cherokee. What’s your problem?” my husband related his experience to me.
My mind was somewhere else. I wondered why the compact cars were often out. I wondered if more customers preferred smaller cars these days given the gas price. I wondered if the rental company intentionally gave “upgrades” to business travelers since they could get their expenses reimbursed by their employers, thus were less sensitive to gas price.
“Hey, you are not listening,” my husband saw me wander off, “the point is that they refuse to see my perspective. I don’t want to drive a truck even when I don’t pay for the gas.” That is why he was on the phone with the company to try to end the “upgrades” once and for all.
Good point. But you can’t really blame the reps behind the rental car counters. For years, people want bigger cars and indeed feel lucky when they unexpectedly get an upgrade. I will bet if I worked at a rental counter for a few years, my mind would click into the autopilot mode – bigger being better.
When someone shows up and makes a counter-intuitive demand, it trips the autopilot. The reps have to readjust their auto responses trained over years of working behind the counter.
Going against the grain upsets the autopilot.
But you know what? If the autopilot gets tripped often, then the program in the corporate brain and therefore the employee responses will be reset.
Another example is the checkout counter at grocery stores. Ever notice the efficient bagging procedure? The clerk opens the plastic bags on the rack, puts the grocery in, lifts the bags and puts into the cart, in a matter of seconds. They do it a few hundred times a day without thinking about it. But then you come along, bringing your own bags, completely interrupting the autopilot process flow. It is not a big deal, but it interrupts the flow and it trip the preset mind. And you wonder why the grocery store clerks get annoyed. At least they used to be.
But human minds can be retrained fairly easily. The clerks at my local Wholefoods and Trader Joe’s stores have gotten used to seeing a variety of bags brought in by customers.
Efficiently they have reset their procedure. Look for customers’ own bags first. If yes, bagging procedure starts with the bags. If no, ask paper of plastic and start the procedure there.
It takes about 3 seconds more. No customers have ever complained about the additional 3 seconds at the checkout counter. Program reset successful.
For years, I put just-washed laundry to the dryer that is stacked on top of the washer without really thinking about it. Reading other people air/sun dry their laundry did not reverse my automated action for months, until one perfectly sunny and hot day. From that day on, I reset my laundry autopilot program. Now I have a new wash and sun/air dry routine to follow, not harder, just different.
In many aspects of our daily life, we train our brain to operate automatically to be efficient. How many of us think about, really think about the route we take to go to work or drop off kids every morning? How often do we think about our before-bed routines?
What does it take for us to stop in our normal tracks and reset our autopilot programs? External incentives, such as bag credits? External disincentives like increased electricity rate? Internal motivations? Whatever it maybe, may we all stop the autopilot every so often, reset and readjust.
CindyW at Organicpicks
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Copyright 2007 Organicpicks
Green payoffs?
October 13, 2008
Posted by CindyW in : Opinions & Thoughts , 4 comments
I had lunch with a former coworker and friend Ben last Friday. We were sitting by the window, eating our sandwiches, and updating each other with kids, work and life.
A Prius car stopped at the light outside the window. Ben scrunched his face and snorted, “Do you know what I do when I see a Prius?”
“Admire it?” I had no idea why anyone would do anything specific to a Prius.
“Whenever I see a Prius on the highway, I floor the gas and show the driver how wimpy his car is,” Ben bragged.
“Why?” honestly I was puzzled.
“I don’t like green people. They really bother me. You know, I am just suspicious of their real motivations,” Ben was frank.
“What do you think their motivations are?” now I was very curious about the whole thing.
“They think they are morally better than everyone else. The Prius itself is a giant bumper sticker, screaming ‘Look at me, I am green!’” Well, I suppose that was one way of interpreting it.
I suggested an alternative view, “What if I buy a Prius because it cuts down my gas expense and it allows me to drive in the carpool lane?”
Ben thought about it for two seconds, “Good point. Then it’d be okay with me, because it is a rational decision, not a moral show-off. By the way the break-even point for owning a Prius is when the gas is around $4 per gallon.”
Our discussion so far betrayed the business training and experience both Ben and I had. Consumers generally make rational economic decisions. There is always a calculatable payoff with the price they pay. To Ben, the payoff of driving a Prius is either gas savings or a moral superiority complex.
“What about people who drive BMWs?” I asked.
Ben came back without blinking, “That’s just sheer vanity at play. They are announcing to the world that they are rich and successful,” he continued after seeing my sneer, “Their payoff is so blatantly obvious, straightforward and easy to understand.”
“So you are more comfortable with shallowness and vanity than your perceived moral superiority?” I pushed him.
“Vanity is a natural human frailty and completely predictable. The whole being green thing is irrational and therefore unsustainable,” Ben seemed to have an answer to every question.
We continued our now sort of philosophical discussion. He said, “CFLs make sense because the savings in utility expense exceeds the cost of the bulbs. Solar roofs don’t make any sense because it takes too long for consumers to recuperate the upfront expense.” Ben was ready to make the rough estimate on the napkin.
I began to understand that he was not necessarily opposing being green. He needed spreadsheets to show him some sort of payoff from being green.
“How about buying second-hand items instead of new things for environmental reasons?” I mentioned “Story of Stuff”.
“Bah. If there weren’t new things, how could there be second-hand things? Plus, it reduces demand on production. We don’t need this in our financial condition today.” Ben was going by the traditional economic theory – consumption generates demand which stimulates production. The end result: everyone is rich and happy.
I pointed out to him that the traditional economic theories assumed unlimited natural resources (water, minerals, forest, space to live, top soil to plant, etc.) and zero-cost for harmful byproducts of production and consumption (CO2, landfill, many other pollutants).
He acknowledged that it was a RATIONAL point. But until there were well-established economic theories that factor in the resource and cost of byproducts, the traditional theories were still the gold standard.
There was also the intangible happiness factor. “How about that being the ultimate payoff?” I argued. Perhaps happiness should be factored in economic theories, as difficult as the calculation might be. Perhaps the seemingly morally superior motivation of “green people” was really just one of the facets of happiness. They might derive abundant happiness knowing that our world was beautiful and sustainable for them and for their children.
“Yeah, I suppose so,” Ben admitted many imperfections of the “gold-standard” economic theories but remained to be skeptical of green people’s “motivations”.
After our lunch, we walked to our respective cars. As I beeped my Prius, Ben bent over laughing and said, “I am gonna choose to believe that you are a rational being with gas price and carpool privilege in mind.”
I gave him a hug and laughed too, “Maybe I am just morally superior to you.”
As much as I disagree with Ben’s straight rational interpretation of everything, I always enjoy talking with him. Part of it is that he provides a different perspective to my own. Part of it is that he is right in terms of incentives and motivations.
I would venture to say that most of us respond to financial incentives. Recently I read “Earth: The Sequel” which provided an amusing example of incentives. German government required that utility companies buy electricity from renewable-producers, including owners of rooftop systems, at above-market rates. “In 2007, German utilities paid up to 72 cents per kilowatt-hour for solar energy, about triple the price at which they sold energy back to consumers.”
Not surprisingly, solar panels sprang up on lots of roofs. Hey, at that rate, who wouldn’t want to put up a cash-generating system, even in the not-so-sun-filled Germany.
The next 5-10 years will be a fascinating and critical time in our political system. Not only will we need the will power to confront global warming, we also need to navigate various incentives, subsidies, and tariffs to encourage green behaviors and discourage environmentally destructive behaviors.
CindyW at Organicpicks
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Copyright 2007 Organicpicks
Yet another reason for not visiting Starbucks
October 8, 2008
Posted by CindyW in : Opinions & Thoughts , 2 comments
I am coffee crazy but I go to Starbucks only about three times a year. I don’t have anything against Starbucks. It’s just that I’d rather spend my money in local mom and pop non-franchised coffee shops.
Well I don’t have anything against Starbuck until now when a friend has forwarded me this:
Starbucks has been slammed for wasting 23.4 million litres of water a day at 10,000 cafes around the world. This could supply two million people with water in countries suffering drought.
Starbucks rules state that the tap in the “dipper well” may NEVER be turned off to prevent any contamination due to health and safety rules
A water efficient expert said:”The chance of a build-up in the spout is extremely remote. And if there is one, they’re not cleaning the tap properly.”
There you have it.
In California where we have a serious drought (did I say drought again?), every bit counts.
By the way, I haven’t looked into shade-grown fair-trade coffee issues yet. I am procrastinating because it may turn out that I can’t in good concience have coffee any more, at least not outside my house. Sigh, that will be for another day.
CindyW at Organicpicks
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Copyright 2007 Organicpicks
Off-season harvest
October 6, 2008
Posted by CindyW in : Green Journal , 3 comments
If there is one consistent guiding force in my life, it is total randomness. I fair very poorly when it comes to regular schedules and planned events. In other words, me and regular anything just don’t get along swimmingly.
That randomness seems to have extended to my garden as well. As autumn swept in with cooler temperature, apples and pear slowly but surely replaced berries, peaches and melons in our local farmers’ market. Pumpkins and squashes marched into the stalls with their vibrant fall colors.
Wait, it seems that the habitants of my small garden missed the memo. Tomatoes have been ripening with a vengeance.
Cantaloupes began to present their sweet and juicy selves just a week ago.
Water melons are just ready to be picked off the vines.
Sigh, even my fruit and vegetables have taken my personal trait – they arrive whenever they want to, disobeying the rules of seasons. Then again, how can I not love my freshly picked sweet cherry tomatoes when the store-bought ones are beginning to come from Mexico?
During the summer season, while I enjoyed berries, beans, and corn from the garden, I was guilt ridden when it came to daily watering, considering the drought and all.
It rained this weekend – just enough to wet our soil. But it rained after five months of unfailing daily sunshine!
Soon enough even my stubbornly off-seasoned fruit and vegetables will cave in to cooling rain and nightly low temperature. It will be time for beets, carrots, radishes, and onions.
No, it won’t be as exciting as the strawberries, melons and tomatoes. But I am looking forward to seeing them watered by nature rather than from our hose.
CindyW at Organicpicks
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Copyright 2007 Organicpicks
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