A Review of Thinking Today as if Tomorrow Mattered:  The Rise of a Sustainable Consciousness, John Adams (Eartheart 2000)

Unless we change how we think, we shall continue to get the same results we always have.   John Adams asks at what point we need to change our thinking in order to meet the challenges of the future of which we are co-creators.   For anyone interested in looking at how they think, Adams offers a provocative book that is a clear and valuable guide to getting what we most want out of ourselves and our organizations.

 In the first chapter Adams quotes Albert Einstein: “We cannot expect to be able to resolve any complex problems within the same state of consciousness that created them.” (p. 9) He then adds the thinking of psychiatrist Ronald Laing:

 The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little we can do to change until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds.(p. 10)

 The structures of which we are a part tend to focus on short-term, immediate needs and lose sight of longer term challenges.  If our thinking begins and remains where we are today, then we are locked into continuing with the status quo and repeating the past.  The operational, reactive focus that holds many of us captive dooms us to managing symptoms and fighting fires rather than creative strategic thinking.   For most of us “autopilot” thinking condemns us to narrow zones of comfort that most fail to notice are so narrow.   On the emotional side, we remain controlled and impulsive rather than expressive and vision oriented.  As a result we fail to focus on relationships, teamwork and new possibilities.  Adams is convinced that we need to expand our comfort zones in the ways we think and act if we are to have any hope of creating a sustainable economy.

 Adams places his discussion in context by pointing to the exponential dimension of the problems we face.    As the numbers of people on earth grow in an ever steeper curve, the problems that we create grow proportionately.    He asks at what point can we still make a difference if we change the way we think?   Adams challenges conventional economic thinking, noting that the tallest buildings today are the financial buildings, unlike an earlier era when cathedrals dominated the skyline.  This shift indicates a shift in the dominant institution of the society.  He provides a primer on economics and a disturbing overview of the environmental challenges facing us.   Adams recognizes the interconnectedness of the problems and proposes, quoting psychologist John Enright:

 We cannot solve any of these problems.     We can only  solve all of them.  We cannot save ourselves. We can only save everyone. (p. 43)

Adams also recognizes that the dominant global economic model is not poised to address the problems because its thinking does not give value to systems that are necessary for life:

Today it is economic decisions alone, NOT God or natural selection,  which determine which animals and plants inhabit the earth.  Species that survive under today’s “rules” will do so only if they have more economic value alive than not alive.   The goals of economic growth in the short term and an environment that is sustainable in the long term are by definition in conflict.  (p. 72)

 In chapter eight Adams takes on the nature of “autopilot” thinking that will give us more of the same status quo and anesthetize us to building a different future.  He contrasts several styles of thinking.—Moving from the short term to the long term, from reacting to crisis to building creative options,  from local to global consciousness, from separation and either/or approaches to systemic and both/and solutions,  from justification of present actions to acknowledgment of ongoing challenges and from doing and having as a primary life orientation to being.

 After addressing fatigue, stress and burnout in systems that try harder and harder and get less and less, Adams turns to the need for networking, dialoging and communicating with those who share similar views of the world.   Identifying allies, partners for the struggle to bring new consciousness, is at the heart of any successful effort.   He notes that few systems voluntarily undergo radical change in their orientation or end their existence.   A fundamental lesson is: “It is difficult or impossible to make fundamental changes in the basic context or “reality” of any given system when operating from within that context or reality.” (p. 165.)

 Adams has a clear view of how the institutions we have constructed are building the future and points out the necessity of changing our patterns of behavior through changing our thinking if we are to create a new reality that we choose:    

I am simply urging us to carry out this process of co-creation with conscious intent rather than having it arise from unconscious autopilot patterns of thinking and behaving. (p. ix). 

 Dedicating the book to his grandson Jonathan and to all the children he quotes in an opening chapter, Adams urges us to  “see the next generation as the receivers of a legacy of thoughtfulness rather than as those who will have to clean up after us and learn to live with less than we have lived with.” (p. 6)

You can order the book directly from the author for $14.95 plus $3.50 shipping and handling:  John D. Adams, Eartheart Enterprises. 1360 4^th Avenue, San Francisco CA 94122-2616.

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