This post originally appeared on blogher’s ‘Diary of a Single Professional Woman’
Nature is rich – in resources – just like I want to be.
I often say ‘Everything I need to know about the economy and life I learned from Mother Nature’. As fall sends nature’s flash into fallow (or dormancy), it’s the perfect time to learn from her (save, spend, grow) sustainability plan. After all, she’s been around a long time – so what does she know that we don’t? And more importantly what can we learn so we spring open along with the crocuses come April? Here’s my simplistic, and metaphoric thoughts on ‘environmental economics’ to kick around along with the leaves.
Fall may feel like an end rather than a start – look out the window and nature looks like it is dying. Ha! Mother Nature is transitioning from her extroverted spring/summer flash to a well-deserved introverted fall/winter recovery time. Her withdrawal of energy allows time to reflect, rejuvenate, and save for spring’s big bloom roll-out.
Shorter days likely darken our mood. Especially as color leaves our external environment. Green, in particular colors our thoughts – and the U.S. dollar or greenback, that universal currency. Simply:
Lush, rich, life = Green
Green = Money
Green = Nature
Nature = Resources
Resources = Money
Money = Nature
Nature = Resources = Life
Yet, when it comes to linking the economy with the environment, it seems we are colorblind, too often living in the red. I think we need to ask: which resources are needed for life?
For a brief period of time, I thought it was a ‘red handbag’. As you’ve read, it was a temporary want. Sure, I love ‘stuff’ that makes my apartment home. But honestly, I don’t need it – I just want it. The only resources any of us really need for life are oxygen, water, and food. Resources only nature can provide contrary to food package’ ingredient listings.
I say our challenge is working with Mother Nature for our needs while satisfying our human nature with our wants.
It’s asking: What Would Mother Nature Do (WWMND) for economic success? She’d say begin with her 5 steps:
1. Balance: Mother Nature has obviously spent plenty of time on a playground seesaw. She understands the need to maintain balance even while going up and down. She uses what she has – while saving a little for the future. Mother Nature foregoes debt, once her bottom line turns from green to red, she catapults into endangerment/extinction.
Lesson: We may become morally, emotionally, financially bankrupt overusing resources, causing our internal peace (balance) to become extinct. Live under your means to keep your personal seesaw going. Debt drives your energy, emotions, finances and goodwill into the red. And remember: There is no plastic – no credit cards – found in nature.
- Maintaining balance, like on a see-saw can seem like child’s play.
2. Save: Mother Nature saves everything including those piles of leaves in your yard. This is not hoarding. She reduces those dead leaves/blooms by recycling (decomposers de-clutter causing decaying leaves to smell like a frat house bathroom on a Sunday morning) and reusing (notice those leaves are gone by spring – broken up and back into the soil like using old clothes to make a quilt). All this saving leads to new blooms – and a reminder that the future is no predictor of the past.
Lesson: use what you have to grow your future – like with an IRA. And don’t bother raking those leaves in your yard!
3. Spew seeds: Seeds are nature’s C.D.’s (certificates of deposit), little packets of possibility to ensure future growth. They even sound similar! Seeds, like C.D.’s only open at the right time, in the right place, and the right conditions – and they are supported by all those unused seeds and leaves that ‘die’. There are even special seeds that open during a forest fire to ensure that tree species survival. Kinda like emergency C.D.’s/funds.
Lesson: save for emergencies as well as the future – though the stock market provides better returns than C.D.’s.
- Nobody would touch this funky burr-covered seed till it was already open (like all CD’s should be!)
4. Diversification: The healthiest forest and gardens are filled with diverse trees that play host to lots of different bugs, and are called home by lots of birds. Having only one species like Dutch Elm (on decorative paths) found one ‘sick’ tree caused them all to die.
Lesson: Diversification of your holdings maintains balance and growth so even if your ‘Dutch Elm’-like stock tanks/dies, other stock species survive.
5. Be sustainable: Mother Nature thrives because everything she has is used and supports everything else, even though it may seem to be in conflict.
Lesson: Invest in things that feed your future. Material things that overwhelm you and end up in landfills throw you off-balance and leave nothing to decompose – unlike the leaves left in your yard that will decompose to nurture spewed seeds. Experiential investments always leave you with seeds or kernels of thought and growth.
- Part of the Coney Island boardwalk by the NY Aquarium
Mother Nature’s 5 lessons keep you blooming in all seasons:
- This holiday season, stay green and out of the red by matching spending with your values (http://communicationessentials.wordpress.com/values-activity/) and keep you growing.
- Make every day is your special Valentine’s Day by making black the new red. Love yourself by loving your finances and living under your means to live fully in the future.
And really, just one more thing to think about: We may say money is the root of all evil, and we should add, resources are the cause for conflicts personally and globally...
Meanwhile, what steps will you take to support your spring blooms?
Human Nature Concepts 