The Automobile Industry And Environmentalists Must Use Their Sustaining Spirit In The Future
Many people live their life through a sustaining spiritual archetype. The reason we live through a sustaining spirit is to because we want to create multidimensional relationships between human beings, our environment, our society and our world. Partnering together is very important to the sustaining spirit. In order to better demonstrate the goals of a sustaining spiritual archetype, I will first explain it. An archetype is a framework for spirit. It is a concept about how to identify your unique spiritual voice. An archetype gives guidelines that individuals use to describe and understand themselves and their spirit.
Recently President Obama announced new tough federal regulations to cut automobile greenhouse gas emissions from cars and light trucks in order to reduce Americas dependence on foreign oil and raise fuel-efficiency standards to 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016. Amazingly, auto industry officials, environmentalists, union workers and politicians seem to welcome the new change but for different reasons.
Environmentalists applaud the tightening of emissions and fuel economy standards after decades of government delay and industry opposition. On the other side, the ruling provides auto makers with a single national efficiency standard and a reasonable timeline they need to meet production schedules. But can these diverse, adversarial groups work together to reach their goals within these new complex set of rules after years of conflict? Can a profitable, new form of transportation be produced and keep our atmosphere cleaner at the same time?
What kind of relationship would be most effective to face these concerns when the stakes are so high, the conflicts are serious and the outcome is uncertain? The traditional relationship where one group or person has the power over the other is not an option. The alternative is a partnering relationship where responses to changes are creative and practical. The partnering quality of the sustaining spirit is not about team building. It reaches beneath every economic, political, and social process to call people to learn what it means to be a partner. If the auto industry and environmental sector can learn to listen to the calling of their sustaining spirit, President Obamas initiative will have hope.
The sustaining spirit establishes partnering by way of three avenues intersecting. The first, intentioning, is creating purpose driven actions. In order for partnering to occur, both sides must have the same intentions. Too often human behavior is unintentional. Cultures often act from the memories of the past rather than towards the possibilities of the future. The auto industry fell apart economically because the framework of their social biography disintegrated, leaving them directionless. The lifelong job created by the innovation of the future disappeared. The auto industry embraced a social biography that no longer worked. A partnering relationship, including intentioning, between the auto industry and the environmentalists must start if we are going to move towards a sustainable and prosperous future.
Parity is the second characteristic of partnering expressed by the sustaining spirit. Parity is where partners recognize that each offers to the other something of value. This is crucial to the partnering relationship. The environmental group and the automobile group must recognize that each has valuable attributes necessary to reach an agreeable solution. This does not mean sameness. The sustaining spirit calls for equivalency but difference.
The third avenue needed is learning itself. Partnering is successful only with a mutual and reciprocal learning environment. Reciprocity between nature, modern technology, Mother Earth, and humanity is essential to the success of partnering. The auto industry and environmentalist must learn from both their own and each others mistakes. This awareness towards learning is essential to the sustaining spirit. Will the auto industry and environmentalists accomplish individual goals while helping the other at the same time? The sustaining spirit says, Yes!
Changes in the automobile industry and in the environmental industry will require careful examination of traditional and cultural beliefs. Letting go of certain habits is essential. This task cannot be forced. Difficult inner work is necessary. Every instance of the sustaining archetype is about partnering. We can all learn to partner with each other and with our earth, environmentalists and auto-industry gurus alike, so that each of us and all of us are sustained. Without that, we are lost.