Is human life sustainable? Of course it is. But not without regard for where and how we live.

As I see it, our problem is that we usually don’t listen first. Even though our fathers told us that God gave us two ears and only one mouth in order to listen twice as much as we talk, we still usually don’t listen. And we seem compelled to follow those who don’t listen either. Those we allow to lead us tend to be the folks who walk into a room and immediately begin to bend it to their will. They don’t begin by listening to how things are or understanding how things work. They begin by telling us how things are going to be. They talk right over quieter things and walk right over quieter things because damnit, we’re doers and we’re winners and we’re not going to be caught flatfooted, waiting around for someone or something else to make the first move and maybe get the upper hand.

The stories we tell ourselves say a lot about how much we are listening and, despite the veneer of our bravado, how resilient a people we truly are. Europeans came to this continent and called the indigenous people savages. Why? Let’s be perfectly honest, because the world would be too tough to figure out if they weren’t. America grew its powerful economy on the backs of enslaved people because the world would be too tough to figure out if we didn’t. For the longest time women weren’t fully equal people, and in some ways still aren’t, because the world would be too tough to figure out if they were. And nearly everywhere we’ve settled we change the physical ecology of that region to fit our way of living. Why? Because life would be too tough to figure out if we didn’t.

When you’re young it’s hard not to be in awe of world-changers. I used to think that those people who constantly bent the world to their own will did so because they were so powerful. Now I wonder if those who bend the world to their own will—be it a country, an economy, a family, a relationship, a conversation, or yes, an environment—feel the need to do so simply because they’re just so powerful, or is it really that they’re just too scared and too weak to accept things as they are.

I truly don’t know the answer, but something in me says it’s an important question. Do we bend the world to make it better, or do we bend the world because life would be too tough to figure out if we didn’t? I don’t know.

I’ve never had much success bending the world to my will so I can’t speak from personal experience. All I know is I’ve never regretted trying to listen before speaking, trying to understand before acting, and trying my best to embrace the world as it really is instead of clinging to stories that make me feel better. Changing myself first, and then asking what needs to be done around me. Reality is almost always a tougher pill to swallow but, in my view, it’s always the best way to start building yourself a beautiful life.