Great post up on Placeshakers recently with a brief history of the NIMBY movement (that would be Not In My BackYard), where it took a turn for the…for arguments sake let’s say worse, and included what I think is the most important lesson we can all learn:
The burden now falls on you to stop telling them what you don’t want. And start telling them what you do want.
This is one of those universal life lessons that come along every once in a while. If we go through life focused on the negative, we miss all the positive that’s out there. Think about it this way, we all know someone who’s sole focus in life is winning (be it softball games, computer games, fantasy whatever-ball, etc). All they talk about all day around the water cooler (do offices still have those?) is how much their team creamed this other team in Fantasy Football. Now think about how much actual time this obsession represents, maybe a couple of hours a week. This is how much time is spent on the pursuit that may or may not lead to one of these coveted victories.
Now, what about the umpteen other hours in that week? What is this guy missing by being consumed with winning his game in 3 days? Will his kid have a project they need his help on? Will his partner have something they need to discuss with him on full attention? Heck, will a Pileated Woodpecker (that’s the one that looks like Woody) land in a tree outside his kitchen while he’s staring, glued to the screen making adjustments to his roster? (quick admission, I know absolutely nothing about fantasy football, and frankly nearly the same about real life football. What I do know is that it’s an obsession for many people I have known over the years)
What is this guy missing by not being present? Are you this guy? What are you missing by focusing on something in the future and not being present right now? Same goes for people who always focus on the negative – “drivers here are the worst,” “I hate cyclists who run red lights” (sorry, personal one got in there). In the context of this article, the issue is community activists who spend all their time telling planners and city officials what they DON’T want them to do…that they loose sight of what they actually DO want them to do.
Don’t fall into that trap. Don’t become so focused on a negative (or worse all of them at the same time) that you miss out on all the positives that happen in between. By Rebalancing your priorities to be able to spend more quality time with your loved ones, doing what you place the most value on, you won’t miss the spaces in between.
