We Are Not Trees
“If you don’t like where you are then change it, you are not a tree”
I recently saw this on LinkedIn, in bold letters, written large. I understand the intention and it has some validity, aimed at supporting those parts of ourselves that have choice and agency, nudging us towards taking responsibility for the things we have control over and can change, with an imagined undercurrent of “stop moaning and leave!” Yet it irked me somewhat.
People may not be trees, but we sure have an underworld of roots, interconnected with other roots, communicating, feeding, supporting, nourishing, sometimes contaminating and restricting. Necessarily entangled with others, within a wider – and wilder - weather system. Unlike trees, we do have the means, by and large, of physical movement from one territory to another AND it is those very entanglements that is the essence of human life. Our own very particular entanglements and the undeniable strings-attached nature of families and organisations and societies the world over.
Illustration by Davide Bonazzi
It’s easy to judge ourselves – and others – against a backdrop of such messaging and the spirit of these times. You’ve got to have a dream, after all. Media thrives on the short, sharp sound bite or inspirational quote, capturing as they sometimes do, an essence that resonates, touches a tender spot, speaks an essential truth. Like poetry.
Context is all though and these days we still seem to pay scant attention to context and its interwoven nature. Seeing only the results - the tips of an iceberg - of unacknowledged influences on our lives and how they unfold. Heaping perhaps too much emphasis on the influence the individual has over their own lives and destinies. It lives out in the judgements we place on others, the assumptions we make about the choices people make, the advice we like to offer from the safety of distance.
One of the benefits, as I saw it, of the COVID pandemic lockdowns and all the madness of those initial days, months, of living a new reality, was a greater recognition of the fundamental interconnectedness of everything.
Another was the potential - at least for some - to take stock and consider what was important to us and figure out what was possible to change in the way we lived our lives. Three years on and some of us will have made changes, many of us will have slotted back in to our ‘old’ lives, happily or unhappily, and some of us will still be working out where that ‘sweet spot’ is – what we can influence and live with the consequences of changing and what we are not ready, not willing or just not able to influence. The territory is getting more unsettled and unpredictable.
In essence, these questions are at the heart of all personal and professional development. If we refuse to explore beneath the surface of anything – be it inspirational quotes, organisational values or government policies, we will continue to live in a world that panders to simplicity, populism and separateness and miss the richness of what we can work out – together: where and what change is needed and really possible.
Marion is a co-facilitator of our Whole Person Coaching Supervision programme, which can be seen here.