It Takes Two to Tango.

This statement appears to be true. And it pretty much takes two to argue or to fall in love or to make a seesaw work smoothly. But how much influence do we really have on each other?

Last week I was visiting with some friends who were a bit frustrated with a slowdown in a project they are facilitating. R. asked somewhat rhetorically, "How to you get people to change?"

Bingo, That. Is. The. Question.

I asked myself ,"How to I get myself to change?"

And the answer is that it is really hard. The things that aren't hard, I am not counting in this discussion. And, full disclosure: I am a creature of habit. This is sometimes a good thing and sometimes, not so good. I am somewhat rational, somewhat educated, somewhat energetic, somewhat lazy. In my thinking, most of us are pretty complicated and at the same time, pretty simple.

I guess that change comes partly from running out of options. I have mentioned before this astoundingly fun and brilliant shrink I knew in Puerto Rico many years ago (1968). He said "The imperative to change is death." I get that. I know a bunch of people who quit smoking when a doctor mentioned cancer. Just never smoked again. No program, no fuss, no gum or patches. Over.

But my friend was asking about how to influence people to create a more sustainable energy plan. I remember the gas lines during the Carter years when suddenly we were developing car pool lanes and creating good intentions. When the oil started flowing again, all was forgotten and cars kept getting bigger and hungrier all the time. I had a Jeep Grand Cherokee that got 8 miles to the gallon. Loved that car.

When the Fukushima disaster happened three years ago, Germany decided to shut down all its nukes. The USA is building a new one (tax payers subsidizing and insuring) for the first time in more than 30 years. Interesting reaction. Bringing that down to a dumb personal example, I keep telling myself that I won't buy any more water in plastic bottles and then making endless exceptions for myself. I know the plastics (all plastics) are toxic and yet I bought one today. Here in Nica, they get recycled by the people who pick the garbage, but that doesn't account for the toxins which enter my body and the toxins and oil that are necessary to make the plastic and all that stream of stuff I should not be buying into.

It is possible that being conscious will eventually get me to stop. But why is it hard? If I have trouble with simple little stuff like this, how do we get billions of people to change their habits? I don't know. A lot of Americans have stopped throwing trash on highways. That was a big campaign by Lady Bird Johnson. (cool name) but we have created billions of tons of new crap that is bad for the environment and is now floating around in our oceans.

I'd be interested in thoughts on how we get ourselves and others to make changes. I assume we all need to.