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Perverse as it might seem, I've always thought there was a big advantage in being born fat. It meant- at least for me- that from the get-go I identified with, and was much more open to, people and ideas that were ab-normal. Since I was never ever like everyone else... or at least not what society told us we should be like... I felt pretty free to embrace any peculiar, interesting or unpopular notion I fancied. Made friends with all sorts of interesting folk that others avoided. Took pride in my rebellion against the notion of "average".
Though i'd been like this throughout my growing-up years, it exacerbated when I went to college in 1971. Having spent my high school years in a small, conservative Connecticut town, the closest I'd come to "the Summer of Love" was singing in the Folk Club. Sex was something I was still avoiding as a good Catholic girl. I had so little understanding of recreational drugs that I thought girls who wore long sleeves in the summer must be "shooting up"... whatever that meant. And I didn't know a whole lot about Rock 'n roll, though it certainly had its dangerous appeal. What I did know was that I thought there must be a better way to live than the same same sameness of my little town.
So I was ripe for hippiedom. Eventually soon the sex and rock 'n roll would become much more a part of my life, and even the drugs in a very very minor way (I'm WAY too disgustingly responsible), but what really captured my heart was the "common sense" of it all. The campus hippies I knew wore beautiful India print cotton skirts... and knew more about India and "comparative religions" than anyone i'd ever known before. They baked their own bread and made their own jams.... without food coloring. They planted vegetable gardens behind their dormitories. They ate less meat and more lentils. They carried their own bags to the health food store and bought their peanut butter in bulk... filling scratched old plastic containers they'd filled dozens of times before. They set-up childcare and food cooperatives. Rode bicycles and car-pooled (when they weren't hitch-hiking). Volunteered at the local fire department. Went to the town meetings. Protested inequality and prejudice. Worked for political candidates they believed in. Organized blood drives. Put solar panels on their roofs and collected rainwater. Talked to farmers about the evils of pesticides. Looked you deep in the eye when they talked to you, and listened as often as they talked. "Reduced, reused, and recycled" long before it was a slogan. Thought globally, and then acted both globally and locally. Made me really THINK about my actions and their consequences.
I'm hardly a model citizen. I own far more than I strictly need, and I get lazy sometimes. But an awful lot of who I am was learned from those "common sense" folk who taught me that you really are part of the problem if you're not part of the solution, and that greed and self-centeredness are destructive to society. That community matters. Local AND global.
I've been thinking a lot about this lately, and especially this week. In one of those strange cosmic coincidences, on Wednesday I both began reading Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel"- a Pulitzer Prize winning tome that attempts to show us how our various cultures evolved from their pre-historic roots and which I assume will shed some light for me on how and why differing cultures make decisions now- and attended a preview showing of the latest WAKE UP FOLKS! documentary- "The 11th Hour"- which is both a sobering chronicle and condemnation of the ways in which we have damaged our planet through greed and neglect, and a primer for some of the ways we can mitigate or even undo some of the damage.
The book, which I'm only about 100 pages into, is beautifully written for the layman by someone who seems to be able to put aside his own innate cultural prejudices to look at all of history with a clear eye. In the spirit of "those who do not understand history are doomed to repeat it", I'm hoping I'll come away from his writing with a better understanding of why hate and "superiority complexes" seem to plague so many people and nations these days, and what pitfalls we can endeavor to avoid in the future.
The film- truth be told- is not near as well produced as last year's "An Inconvenient Truth", and the imagery is shockingly low-tech in this day and age of "the media sells the message", but for all that, in some ways I think it's the more powerful film. Where Al Gore & company focus on the single issue of the environment, this film- with it's innumerable talking heads- makes a much stronger case for the roots of our problems being in our greed and laziness. And where I think Al & that team did a better job at the end of "An Inconvenient truth" to give you the small tools we need to make important corrections to our "ostrich with their head in the sand" behavior (is that even a true metaphor- do ostriches put their heads in the sand???), I think Leonardo DiCaprio and his erudite peeps make you feel a bit more ashamed if you don't use them.
So most of my life, I've tried to do what I think is right day to day. Think about the consequences of my actions. Act in a way that impacts my community positively. Utilize common sense solutions to problems. Be active politically and in my community. Leave as small an imprint on the planet as I could. But even those of us "grown-up hippies" who think about these things and really do care, have been selectively blind to all that we've not been doing. It's not enough for me and you- and I feel confident that those reading this try to do their part too, hippies and closet hippies alike- to act responsibly. We have to do even better ourselves, and then find a way to make all those "normal" "average" folk who chose to ignore the dire consequences of their lifestyles sit up and take notice. Make them understand we ALL need to take action. I'll be happy and proud when all those normal folk morph into the ab-normal citizens I've always admired. I hope I'm part of making that happen.
There's an awful lot to do- immediately- if our children's children are not to go the way of the wooly mammoth. As one of the talking heads eloquently reminded us. The earth will survive. We're the ones who might not.
. . . . . . . . . .
Where to start???
Here are a few of my pet peeves/causes. What are some of yours?
• people who refuse to recycle because it's too much work.
• people who buy drinks in deposit bottles and then throw them away instead of recycling them.
• people who think wind power is unsightly and that solar power is unnecessary
• able-bodied people who not only refuse to car-pool or use public transit when it's available, but who waste fuel driving around the parking lots of our temples to conspicuous consumption until they find the closest parking spot to the door.
* people who make fun of electric cars and seek the status of owning armor-plated SUVs
• people who use precious resources to make the zillions of plastic gee-gaws that tempt you at the check-out counter of every store and "inconvenience" store on the planet, and those who have to have those useless things
• people who buy designer water in plastic bottles- ignoring the effect their manufacture has on the environment- rather than working to ensure that industry does not pollute our waterways in the first place
* those who believe that their procurement of personal wealth is more important than the health of their workers and neighbors
• those who believe the purpose of a corporation is to make a PROFIT, rather than to fairly compensate it's workers, and create something that has a positive impact on society.
• condo associations that prohibit clotheslines. Hellooooooooo!
• politicians who believe their electability, and support from industrial interests, is more important than doing the right thing when it comes to legislation.
.... I'd better stop here before I go on for days.
The Phoenix Arizona BBB has 11,000 members. Only 15 of the Business Ethics Awards Nominees become Finalists. This is the first time a matchmaking service has made it to the finals. Roseann Higgins - President & Founder of SPIES Single Professional Introductions for the Especially Selective is interviewed in this video and shares how she started SPIES, how she introduces people and maintains their privacy and makes sure they both want to meet.
She shares her company's mantra... "We want people to fall in love for the right reasons. We want people to live happily ever after. We want children to grow up in a two parent happy, loving home. And the more people that are on my team that can help me do that, the more love there is in the world."
Because of people we are blessed to work with, we get tickets to Barrett Jackson - VIP experience, the Phoenix Open. It exposes us to meeting new people who want to know us. This is an exciting job people want because of who we work with.
We've been doing community service projects since 1994 - worth over a quarter of a million dollars including a Bachelor & Bachelorette Auction, the Boys & Girls Club, CASS homeless shelter project, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, SPIES Cupid's Cure for the Muscular Dystrophy Association MDA to send kids to camp, St. Mary's Food Bank.
I want to grow that to $1 Million in community give back.
We are so excited to be recognized for our ethics by the Better Business Bureau!
Roseann Higgins: (602) 241-1800 www.especiallyselective.com
Want to hear Roseann Higgins share this herself on video? ...how SPIES began in her own voice, about her mission to have children grow up in a two parent home where the parents live happily ever after and how her matchmaking service achieves industry leading success rate? Here is the Better Business Bureau BBB video they shot of Roseann Higgins at SPIES private office for the Torch Award for Ethics Gala: youtu.be/8OvjEhtkzgo
My name is Roseann Higgins. In 1994 I was the first to combine professional matchmaking and executive search or executive recruiting. I go to events to find the true loves for the most eligible men in America. I created my own job title: romance headhunter™ and started hitting business, charity, social, sporting, educational, leadership, executive events, for the top echelon leaders to the best singles event of the year in Arizona - the Phoenix Open. I've met 70,000 people and hand-selected laser precision perfect matches for my clientele. It's resulted in a marriage an average of every six weeks since 1994. Each person who wants to hire me goes through my detailed information gathering process so I can determine the likelihood theirs is a search I can deliver on. I have to ensure the man wants the type of girls I want to introduce (keepers who can love and support him for who he is as a person and not how much money he has and and I have to feel a high probability - with his looks and the whole package he has is - that when I call the girl of his dreams, she will say YES, too! If you know who my secret clientele were, you'd admire them and my company. They are good people who work hard at everything they do...family, workplace, community, fitness, friendships and relationships. Everyone I introduce is going to be a great partner in a relationship and marriage! I have introduced a marriage an average of every six weeks since 1994. With ony 5 divorces, these couples have a 96% happily ever after rate, which is <4% divorce rate. The US divorce rate leads the globe at 50%. I am extremely dedicated to leaving the biggest gift to the world...true love.
My then 22-year matchmaking service SPIES Single Professional Introductions for the Especially Selective™ is the first matchmaking service in 2015 to become a Finalist in the BBB Business Torch Award for Ethics / Business Ethics Award not only in Arizona but in the entire United States! This photo is a closeup of the beautiful trophy President & CEO of the Greater Arizona BBB Matt Fehling presented onstage in front of hundreds of people in a packed ballroom at the Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa. Photo and roses courtesy of Advisory Board Member and friend - Jim Scheller. See flickr.com/photos/albums/ SPIES Awards for the picture in a beautiful long blue dress with the trophy and the presenters. Pat McMahon noticed and complimented the dress, my friends told me! My heart was racing so I focused on getting the Trophy and getting off the stage safely in my high heels. It was a great reason to wear the dress. BBB