Working for Now. There is No Later.

Jul 27

The quality of now. The problem with later.

What if you spent most of your time today gathering or preparing food? You might be at one end of the food chain in catering or hospitality. You’d probably be processing already processed food.

At the other end of the food chain, you might be the individual food processor hulling rice, for example.

To say that rice processing is hard work is an understatement. I am numb watching this activity. The hunching, the hacking, the pounding, the shaking. It’s relentless. And for perhaps questionable results in terms of nutritional value. White rice is linked to diabetes in Madagascar. Villagers eat rice nearly three times a day. Backbreaking. Heartbreaking.

What’s the difference between food service in a poor country vs a rich one? Both are vital. Both provide a range of options. Both are poorly paid. Both significantly define culture.

Farming rice, fishing and tending cattle is what the villagers do on Nosy Be for food. Parents are either too poor, too needy for labor or both to send their kids to school.

I sense how families are torn. There is money to be made from tourism, lots of it. Money is essential. But if kids pursue education, who will be around to work the farm and pick the fruit? Real problem.

Meanwhile, island life is island life. The environment is bustling with tourism. Greater numbers of visitors are coming to this ‘big island’ from further and further away.

There’s more. Tropical, artisanal life is bucolic, seemingly peaceful and undisturbed. Except for garbage of course. Garbage is everywhere.

Destroy the environment and the tourists will move on.

In what ways is it possible to maintain traditional life that is sustainable and revenue generating while raising awareness among island visitors and residents about health and sustainability?

What comes first, management or vision? They go hand in hand for something, conscious or not.

It’s befuddling. While some go on holiday to tropical islands for sun soaked beaches, others are forced to flee the heat due to climate change.

Cleary, we in rich countries are living for now as well. Vast tracks of land and sea are literally burning up, melting down and wreaking havoc around us.

Go on on holiday these days and you may be cut short, caught in an environmental crises. For real.

There is power in every decision.
- UN Secretary-General Antόnio Guterres, 2020

We have this idea in the West to save for later. Later, there will be more disruption from fires, from heat, from flooding. I could go on.

Yeah, I’m thinking working for now is not such a bad idea after all. And when supported by vision, decisions now move in a direction of intention.

A drip feed of decisions got us here. What if we imagine something different? #creative leadership.
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Tanya is a PhD candidate for creative leadership. Action research dissertation requires reflection on lived experience. This blog captures some of Tanya’s experience as a researcher on sabbatical in Nose By, Madagascar where she teaches for Creativity at www.wingsofchange.co and facilitates for complex problem solving.