This morning I read that the average American wastes 1,400 calories of food each and every day. Then I learned this equates to enough food to feed 200 million people. Are. You. Serious?

While it is known that American’s enjoy indulging (myself included) in fine foods, fast foods, desserts, and more, it seems we are missing a step by ending the cycle once we have eaten. There has been increasing innovation focused on methods of energy usage; how we capture and utilize new forms of energy, and further, reclaiming excess and wasted energy. Americans are innovators and I am convinced wise and effective uses for our wasted food can be found.

One solution I propose is creation of composting requirements in urban and suburban areas. Differences would clearly exist between these two environments, but the ease of implementation increases the appeal to municipalities and citizens. Standards in urban areas would be adapted to the close-knit layout of apartments and condos. The application would focus on use of compost for existing and desired green spaces in urban settings. Suburban households and restaurants would receive tax breaks for composting efforts and here is how: Food is heavy and removing it from our trash would lessen the needed frequency of trash pickup, lighten the weight of the loads and decrease spending on trash removal. Much as citizens in suburban communities may be required to buy their trash cans, they could be prompted to create a compost area on their property and be underway in no time.

Milwaukee has an example of an urban composting effort in the basement of the Urban Ecology Center (No, it doesn’t smell. Yes, I’m being honest.) Their efforts show feasibility. With further creativity, entire apartment and condo complexes could be transitioned to these suggested practices, or at least a form of such, in a short timeframe.

My solution doesn’t even touch on a transition from excess food being conserved or reused for feeding more mouths, but that is where you come in. What ideas do you have for new practices? Can you implement them, even if it is just for you initiallz? Can you influence your family, neighbors, friends? Show us.

This post may be a bit more personal than my usual writings, but the lesson that can be conveyed is worth sharing.

Last year I decided to plan a time of extended travel. I had no destination in mind. The reason for traveling was not to travel, but to escape. I didn’t realize this at the time, but much has been made very clear to me over the past 2 months. This desire to go led to a lot of lofty dreams and aspirations being thrown around by me. “I want to do this. I want to move here. I want to be this way.” etc.. These were insignificant. Me searching for an unknown. Making mistakes and learning, just like each and everyone of us must do to move forward. I made the choice to travel because I was unhappy in my job. That is what I was trying to escape. It gave a reason to leave my job and allow me to realign myself in a career better suited for me. This presented a lot of unknowns for a man who has always been very focused and certain is his moves. I admit, it was strange even to me, not to mention those around me, to adjust to operating in a different mode of thought. Yet, even as I pushed forward with my travels I was working quite hard to be someone I wasn’t, someone flighty, seeking change, and uncertain. I am a man who is stable, hard-working, driven, a provider out of care and instinct. I was acting as something I wasn’t and that had never been made more clear to me.

Quite early in my travels I began to feel a weight on my heart that the stability I had left was, in fact, what I functioned best within. I was carrying out volunteer work in Ecuador as this was becoming clear to me, but ultimately, I feel I could have been anywhere else in the world and the realization would have remained the same. I knew I had to return home. I knew I wanted to regain the stability I left, but now it would be within an industry that I am much better suited for. It took me leaving to learn that I didn’t need to leave. It took my decision to alter course to open doors to a new industry. A bit of a irony I’d say.

Returning home has been an amazingly clarifying experience on many levels. I feel that this is my home. I look forward to regaining the stability I once functioned within. The realignment that has taken place for my desired career was based on a need for a new industry. That industry has been determined following a wonderful 3 month exposure within an agency. I am always open to new opportunities, but I have realized to let them develop and present themselves rather than chasing after an unknown. It goes without saying that we must be where we can find work, and the best place to achieve this is where you have the best network. The best place to be is also where people exist who support you, and family takes the cake on importance here. It all seems so logical looking back over the very scattered decisions I made initially. There was a reason that things worked out the way they did and how quickly. Others who know me are somewhat surprised that a realization could occur quite quickly, but only I can understand what I feel and the reasoning for the timing of both going and returning. I am quite thankful for those who have chosen to support my decisions, aside from fully understanding.

Be prepared to have your mind overcome by talent:

Noir Desir and Manu Chao – Le Vent Nous Portera

Often enough, we all continue to buy into the perceived need for globalization. Yet the benefits of globalization are much more limited than many of us acknowledge. For services, I stand a proponent of globalization and globalized economies of scale as costs are cut and local wages raised. Yet in products, specifically disposable products the likes of food and linens, localization can provide an increased benefit in cost, quality, and timeliness.

Two areas of focus on movement from globalization to policies promoting localization of certain goods were shared by Helena Norberg-Hodge. First, shift taxes from employment onto energy use and pollution. Perhaps better known as Pigouvian taxation, this method encourages businesses to make choices based on the population they serve rather than purely on profits (numbers) alone. As we see with GDP figures, numbers alone can be flawed, which leads to her second point of  “new indicators that genuinely measure progress.”

In watching the rise and fall of GDP to make decisions, policymakers overlook that sickness and pollution, two factors that increase pharmaceutical sales and healthcare needs, raise GDP but negatively impact the well-being of society. They look on an increase in bad as a good, simply because GDP increases collectively. Something seems backwards and implementation of new standards that focus on a shift toward selective localization may present a boom in our society for the better.

As is the case from excitement and discontent alike, ambition can be overdone. Those who are brave enough to change their path – if this is desired – in their career are faced with wonder of how to do so. The change many seek is to go independent, to work as a contractor/consultant or to start one´s own business. The Japanese call this the Datsu-sara Suru.

The trouble of the Datsu-sara dance is how far we take our desired change. For myself, as an example, I am passionate about environmental and sustainability efforts around the world, but most specifically in the U.S. and even more specifically in urban areas; big cities. While much can be learned around the globe as to how sustainable practices can be incorporated into these urban areas, I do not desire, particularly, to be the individual out doing the labor. My strengths and interests are more in delegation, management, and planning efforts to incorporate new initiatives, new practices. I have had a discussion recently with a guy who is the exact opposite. He, unlike myself, feels out of place in cities and away from life. I feel at home in cities and feel the abundance of life, but would like to see growth in green spaces in urban areas. While this may not lead me to a career, a broader realization of what I enjoy and how my efforts should be focused is confirmed.

It had taken me much time to learn more of who I am and what I truly feel. Even further, to be able to admit this to one´s self is challenging. Is it not best to take a moment and examine not what you want, but how you enjoy achieving the things you do each day, week, or month? Perhaps this will aid you in realizing what you are best at, what you enjoy most, and what your purpose in life is. Maybe the industry which is best for us could be many, but the role of what we do for a company is the most important. Personally, I have spent much time looking outside myself for answers when what I enjoy most was already known. Oddly, it took me pushing outside myself to realize that. Thus, being overly ambitious can lead to good, but don´t expect that good to necessarily be a previously unknown.

As I sit here at the airport, I am conflicted with both sides of this coin. On the one hand, we are encouraged in life, as men, not to waver; to make decisions and take responsibility for the results of those decisions. Making a decision wasn’t a difficult task for me in the past, I knew what I wanted and I went after it.

On the other hand, things are never so simple, as it always turns out. My unabated wants created a conflict and what I got wasn’t what I wanted at all. I quickly learned that goals and aspirations have their place, but just as they may help you grow, they may also hinder and detract. So here I sit about to depart on a wonderful journey, and at the same time about to be further from what I want most.

So I am faced with the toughest test of patience I have ever met, possibly the largest I’ll face in the rest of my life. And even as the wonder rolls in, I realize the benefit that will come from this experience: that in pushing ourselves and those we love to what seems unnecessary and unexpected methods of assuring each others feelings, we can wind up with even more certainty than we could have imagined possible. The inconvenient, even selfish, initial actions teach us, change us for the better, and create a certainty of what we really care about in life, what is most important to us. This quote says it well:

“Borders were meant to be crossed and redrawn. It is all part of the growing process.”

Tegan and Sara have long been amazing musicians in my mind, and their latest album doesn’t disappoint. The Ocean (track 11 on this album) contains amazing lyrics. Some musicians flow and do things right, they “get it.” Tegan and Sara fit that description. Enjoy!

Tegan and Sara – The Ocean

This morning as I was running through my ever-changing morning routine before heading to work I realized my house keys were not in my pants pocket. Immediately I mentally retraced my steps and started looking everywhere they may have been: my gym bag, my coat pocket, the pair of jean I wore yesterday, my work bag. Most of these places I never put my house keys. Ends up they were right where I normally keep them, just covered by a piece of paper. I never thought to look more closesly at where I keep them every day and instead turned to possible other solutions. As I drove to work I wondered to myself why my thought process worked that way.

Do we as a society, as individuals functioning in a bigger picture, tend to take our eye off what is so clearly in front of us? It’s an interesting thought. How often when we seek to fix something is change by expansion invoked over focus on the existant. I know I am guilty of looking forward when I should be focused on what is occuring right now, especially when the now is what contains the answer I am looking for. It seems we have a tendancy as innovators and deep-thinkers to take the focus a bit too far, to over-think a situation or a problem. Similarly, a term exists known as Occam’s Razor, named after William of Ockham. The principle focuses on not complicating that which has a simple answer. Phrased another way, we shouldn’t add to a process when it can sufficiently be carried out in a simpler method. The best aspect to a principle such as this is that it is answering a proposed fault by removing additional thought and effort. There are few intellectual contributions which simplify and converge rather than diverge to more information; an ever expanding network.

Stepping back even further, do we dig too deep at times in our lives looking for what is the right answer when the answer is already quite clear? I don’t mean to simply pose a variety of unanswered questions, yet somehow it feels appropriate given the different states we all currently operate within. I do know that life can be much more enjoyable with unnecessary complexities removed. Design your life, don’t merely react to what is happening around you.

I’ve become a growing fan of the music label Secretely Canadian and particularly love the band Throw Me The Statue. Check out their song Ancestors:

Throw Me The Statue – Ancestors

Often enough I will participate in a conversation that develops into talks on the need to do something you don’t very much enjoy as a career for an extended time period to achieve the reward of doing something you do enjoy as a career. This process seems odd – almost militaristic – when looked at from the outside, but I can’t disagree that although flawed, this is how the American corporate structure operates.

I’d like to present a different comparison of the sacrifice an individual could make in order to achieve a desired end result:

Do what opens doors versus what you want to do.

Theoretically this will be much more effective at getting you what you deserve, and more importantly what you want, out of life. Let’s first examine the path of the standardized process of upward movement in a career. We’ll use my made up friend Kevin as a rough example of how things might play out. Kevin decided after one semester in college that he wanted to work as an engineer for a polymer manufacturer. He was intrigued by the creation of new matter that held properties previously never existent in this world. So Kevin went through college, struggling at times as any normal student might, but doing above average overall. He is hired into a desk role by a mid-sized chemical engineering firm that is working to refine the use of plastics in consumer products towards a biodegradable standard of some sort. His role has nothing to do with this process. He spends his days purchasing specific materials for use in the engineering process and making sure that the new products requested by the lead engineers and scientists are within the specs needed for development. He hates what he does, but he loves the idea (key word) of what he could potentially be doing. He spends his next 10 years with this firm, with a brief stint spent working for another competitor, and eventually is promoted to the position he saw in such high regard. As a senior engineer, he likes his job  but does not love it.

Plan B.

Kevin comes out of college realizing that what he really wants to expend his efforts on isn’t what is offered in the “real working world.” So he spends a significant amount of time focusing on how to create what he wants. It is unlikely other recent grads are pursuing this path because it doesn’t exist yet, giving Kevin an upper hand already. After some research online and reading a few case studies Kevin develops a list of contacts who have tapped into similar lines of study and work as his planned pursuit. He reaches out and arranges meetings, some far from his current place of residence, costing him more money than he can afford – he takes on debt. He is discouraged at first as the first discussions are brick walls. This seems foolish when he could have done what his schoolmates had done and been hired at the bottom of the pyramid – at least he’d have a predictable income. After 4 meetings or so with experienced professionals in his field of study, he is ready to give up. His 5th meeting, however, opens a door he didn’t expect – a concept of using fibers in adjusting our concept of clothing. Although not polymer related, this concept focuses on a means of electrical generation from the kinetic energy we develop each and every day as the fibers in our clothes rub together. He is offered an opportunity – based on his thesis work and perseverance beyond the standard desk job his classmates pursued – to work with a startup firm in an exciting and innovative role he always pictured coming out of college.

Now, these may be extreme or far-fetched examples. But maybe not. The point behind the differences between each scenario above is that chasing what you want to do in life by making sacrifices that will open doors will perhaps benefit you more than sitting and waiting because it is merely how things work. I am reminded of George Bernard Shaw’s quote on the unreasonable man.

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him… The unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself… All progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

The changes and progress we create as an individual, as a community, as a nation, as a globe, are not based on following standards but on questioning our path, our future and making choices to answer those questions. Don’t sit back and wonder. Do. Shame on our educational system for allowing employers to place us in predictability; in positions where we are forced to reason ourselves into seeing a benefit of our work versus doing what we our passionately supportive of.

Building connections, networking, calling a company to ask a question because you don’t know the answer, or asking for what you want from someone – even if it is a job at their company, can open doors. Not even that, it can accelerate the process of getting you to where you’d like to be. Even better, it could quickly show you disdain for what you thought you wanted and present new alternatives which are a better fit for you. Why wait 10 years to find out you aren’t doing what you love?