Emerald

I made this post a couple years ago, and I thought it would illuminate some things... "Well, I think that this is very normal to want to have deep relationships but also to want the excitement of experiencing new partners sexually. It's two different areas of the brain and two different neurochemicals that contribute to both of these feelings. One is based in the reptilian brain (biological urges and instincts) and the other is based in the pre-frontal cortex (emotions, socialization, reason). Now, even though the wanting to have sex with other people is more pronounced in men because more sexual variety equals more children and more genetic variety and more ways to pass on the genes. Sexual variety for women is biologically normal too but only after a few years when the child is well into toddlerhood. This is because, in nomadic times a woman could not both provide for a baby and care for a baby at the same time because human children are born premature because of our brain growth. So, the father needed to provide for the first few years otherwise the children would not survive and the woman would likely be in bad shape as well because of the intensity of the labor process. So, women have more biological impetus to settle with one partner. But once the three years is up, it benefits our gene pool for the woman to find another strong partner to mate with so that more genetic variety is added to the gene pool. For women, finding the best partner to make the children who are most fit to the environment is the most important. Women can only have so many children because it takes an entire 9 months to make one for them, and there's a lot of work and labor that goes into the process of making and caring for a child. So, the man has to be awesome. Men, on the other hand, can afford a few duds because they can have thousands of children in their lifetime. So, the biological impetus is to mate whenever possible. Both of these behaviors in men and women are what contributes to a biologically healthier species. But because we have a very complex social structure and a complex emotional understanding, we live in a society where men and women have to co-exist and find ways to make these two conflicting drives work in order to create a healthy relationship, a healthy family, and a healthy society. We also all want to be treated fairly because of our ability to reason which comes from the pre-frontal cortex. So, our lower nature (instincts) often conflict with our higher nature (socialization). So, these two things must be reconciled. This is where the paradox comes into play, because (no matter what) there is no way to perfectly reconcile this paradox. The only thing to do is to accept that you will never have things exactly as you want them, because one drive will always cancel out parts of the other. Your best bet for minimizing the issues caused by this paradox is to find an incredibly open minded partner who understands this paradox and doesn't shame you for wanting to have sex with other women. But to expect her to allow you to sleep with other women, while not being okay with her sleeping with other men will undoubtedly get in the way of her pre-frontal cortex's need for fairness. And even if she allowed it, deep down it would cause a barrier to intimacy (which your pre-frontal cortex wants) because of the unfairness aspect. This open-mindedness is hard to find because most people (especially women as I've noticed) buy into the idea of the fairytale romance of only being attracted to the person you're with, love at first sight, etc. These narrative only create more strain and shame around our most natural tendencies. So, unfortunately, it is what it is. You just have to make room for this paradox and find a balance between relationship stability and satiating your baser desires. But we're all in the same boat. I have the same struggles and I'm a woman. My husband and I talk about this struggle too, although I enjoy listening to his fantasies more than he enjoys listening to mine. I'm a bit more open-minded in this way because human sexuality is fascinating to me. I love watching the conflict and tension at work. I also know that his desires for sexual variety doesn't mean that he doesn't love me or want to stay with me. But, you can also change your relationship to your desires, so that they don't run you. I think that you seem to be very self-honest about this dilemma where few people are able to be. So, continue with self-honesty but make it more radical still. All suffering comes from illusion. So, you may not be able to change the way that you're wired on the physical level. Biology is biology. But you can transcend the ego so that you're not buying into "I can only be fulfilled by having things the way that I want them" stories."

But is it something that you'd want to do with those conditions not withstanding?

If you eventually want to live the monastic life, why not do a 30 day meditation retreat at a free Vipassana center? That way, you can see if that's the right path for you. Plus, you will be in a different environment than your dad, and you will get a lot more clarity about the situation because the situation is not pressing your buttons and muddying the waters. This is what I would do in your situation to get distance and clarity, and ultimately make wiser decisions about how to go forward from there.

To answer this question is a little bit difficult, as it's convoluted. First off, the divine feminine has been repressed from humanity for many millennia. Up until very recently in history it has been the story of man against nature (aka the masculine principle against the feminine principle). This has manifested in the past as a desire and need to manipulate and control nature on the macro and on the micro has manifested as men oppressing women. So, in the past, there has been little ability for women to pursue the things that might excite them in a worldly sense. Then, practically, prior to the advent of machines that have made it quicker and easier to do house chores, it was women that needed to do the domestic work while men went out and did the labor that required more strength and a lack of pregnancy. And at this time, women would be pregnant all the time as it was prior to the advent of birth control and sex education. And if women fully realized their sexual/libidinal energy that motivated them to be self-asserting, then it would be a danger to the fabric of pre-industrial society. So, in the past, it was very rare for a woman to pursue anything beyond motherhood and domestic work which was a 24/7 job that allowed for no wiggle room. They were also the punching bags of history since they are physically weaker and representative of nature which was capricious and then took many human lives. Presently, these constraints of women's autonomy are no longer necessary and are a hinderance. But we still are conditioned to believe that the masculine principle is good and important while the feminine principle is bad and unimportant. And women still shoulder a lot of this weight and are pressured to both be masculine (and deny their femininity) and avoid being masculine (while also avoiding any expression of femininity that is dangerous to the status quo... which is most of it) at the same time. So, for all of history there has been a weight on women that has squelched so many of our natural strengths and caused fragmentation and disintegration... but this lessens as we spiral up in human evolution. Now for the tricky part... your question itself is steeped in masculine principle preference. Even valuing being known and seen as important as a guru is an aspect of the masculine principle. It is ego and hierarchical thinking. This adds more weight onto the repression of the divine feminine in society. So, even your question is loaded with this masculine slant. We have a hard time seeing value in that which is not masculine. This also creates a barrier to women becoming empowered and stepping into their most natural energy... which is the feminine. And the feminine is powerful in a way that the masculine can never be. And it is exactly what our world needs right now... even if it's unceremonious and subtle. If we continue valuing the masculine at the expense of the feminine, humanity will continue to grow cancerously upon the Earth and the Earth will die. So, women stepping into our feminine power is a huge component to making the jumps necessary to save the planet from the masculine imbalance that eventually grew to match the power of the feminine planet and began choking it out. And if you had ever felt that feminine energy and truly stepped into it, you'd never feel uneasy about the fact that women had never been ranked highly in some arbitrary hierarchy on a rock floating out in infinite space. That's all imagination land anyway. Status and importance aren't real. Fame is not real. History is not real. You are real. The Earth is real. And if you really became conscious of this, you would know that your validity could never come into question or be defined by how people see you or remember you.

There are no utopias. Never forget that. No one is going to award people money based upon spiral dynamics level because it doesn't provide direct, measurable value to people. A person can be turquoise as the come and provide no value to others. If you reward a person by the quality of the soil in their backyard, but don't reward the fruit that the plants grown in the soil bear, then you will get a lot of people enriching their soil but never taking the time and effort to plant trees that bear fruit... and the entire world will starve. Your idea is based purely in fantasy and a meritocratic idea of which people are most valuable... and rewarding them for some perceived merit based upon an imperfect framework. The world runs the way that it does precisely for a reason... and that doesn't come up based upon an idea of how things should be. It's based on the troubleshooting that the people of past generation have already done.

The idea of the spiral is that each stage integrates and grows through each lower stage. Therefore, if someone has truly transcended red, that means they've also integrated red. So, a person who is in the higher tiers would be able to call upon the skills of red if the situations warrants it... if they've truly grown through that stage completely.

Women aren't attracted to types of guys... they are attracted to very specific guys. So, if a woman becomes attracted to a man there is an immediate attachment before a relationship even starts. But there is a lot of dysfunction in the world. So, women who are emotionally dysfunctional in some way will attract and be attracted to guys who are emotionally dysfunctional in a complementary way. And more often than not, the women get the crappier end of the stick in those relationships... though not always. For example, it is often that women who have trouble with setting boundaries, tend to be attracted to guys who like to go over boundaries. Women who have trouble with self-respect, attract men who have trouble respecting others. Women who have trouble with self-hatred, attract men who have trouble with hatred. So, essentially, women's dysfunction tends to be turned inward toward themselves, and men's dysfunctions tends to be turned outward toward others. So, it's like a double whammy. This is a common dynamic. So, this is very bad news for women who are dysfunctional because they abuse themselves and find partners that will mirror that self-abuse. So, it becomes a vicious cycle. But don't listen to any of the stuff written by men on this thread... they're just making up ideas in their head based on a fetishized notion of womanhood. As a teenager, for four years, I was in an abusive relationship because I have trouble with expressing anger... so I found a guy who exploded in fits of near-violent rage 10% of the time. But the rest of the time, I really liked being around him. So, I was willing to weather the 10% of God-awfulness to be around him because I loved him.... and he loved me too. But we were very dysfunctional. I had no self-respect. So, I felt the abuse was okay. I wouldn't have even left if he had beaten me... I'm sure of this. I was that attached. But at present, I have a much easier time asserting myself. I have more self-respect and firmer boundaries. And men like that aren't attracted to me anymore, and I'm not attracted to them. So, I know that if I got into a new relationship at this point (I'm married so I won't) that I would find a guy who didn't have these issues. I can smell a dysfunctional man from a mile away and I'm no longer attracted to the dysfunction. So, you just see these dynamics because the women are dealing with the contrapositive issue to the one that's causing the guy to be an asshole. But this is nothing for you to fret about or feel like you need to be an asshole to attract women. It's just that a lot of women tend to have low self-esteem and feel inadequate and lack self-respect. But these aren't the women you want to be involved with anyway. It's a lot to take on someone else's dysfunction.

Well, in a sense, it doesn't exactly work as a ratio... but it's the easiest way to understand it. So, talking about ratio works as a metaphor more than an actuality. But if we are thinking about ratios and using that metaphor, the answer is yes. But it would be less common. If a person is very obviously androgynous, where they don't lean more toward masculine or feminine. I suspect a lot of non-binary people are about 50/50 as well as people who would be described as extremely gay... like men who have a lot of feminine mannerisms or women who have a lot of masculine mannerisms. But even with most gay people there is usually a lean more toward the polarity that typically corresponds with their sex. For example, an average straight women would be like 80% feminine and 20% masculine... whereas the average lesbian would be like 65% feminine and 35% masculine. (I'm just pulling numbers out of the air... so this is just an approximation) A non-binary person would be closer to 50/50. Then a trans man (assigned female at birth) would likely be more masculine than feminine in varying degrees. So, it's possible to have any ratio. It's just most common that people would be like an 80/20 split between the polarity that corresponds most frequently to their gender and the contrapositive polarity. But it's also less common for a person to be extremely masculine or extremely feminine as well. So, an 80/20 split is more common than a 90/10 split. So, it's most common for us to all be halfway between androgyny and the polarity most closely associated with our sex.

That's the most concise and accurate description of Yin/Yang that I've heard.

@Shan Now, I'm probably not the prime example because I just started my business venture, but I am an life-coach/entrepreneur with my own YouTube channel (which I've had for a few years now... it has about 17,000 subs). I also have a young family. My daughter is 7 and my son is 3. Presently, I work about 20 hours per week doing life-coaching, and about 15 hours per week making a weekly video for my channel. Then, I probably do about 10 hours per week of research and other types of work to be used soon to expand my channel. So, that comes out to about 35 hours per week. And from all of my income sources, I'm making about $1600 per month. So, I've currently matched my entrepreneurial income to my income that I would normally make as a substitute teacher... so I can quit if I want to. Technically, I've actually already exceeded that income by about 40% because substitute teachers don't get paid during summers, winter break, spring break, or other school holidays. So, I've presently solved a huge financial problem that our family has weathered for the past 8 summers, just by starting my entrepreneurial ventures. Next month, I will begin working on a course to sell through my website. So, I will spend probably about 12-16 hours per week working on that as well, with no financial gain until I release it. But once I do, I'm hoping that it will add quite a bit to my income without having to do much work to maintain it other than dealing with technical difficulties and advertising it. Then, once I actually get certified as a life coaching, I'll raise my prices because I'm offering the service for dirt-cheap now. So, I'll probably be making about $5k per month, at that point off of life coaching (if I have ten clients per month) and I'm hoping to make at least $1k or $2k per month off of my course (hopefully more). But I don't believe at any point in time, will I have to spend 80 to 100 hours per week on my business... in fact, I could not do that if I wanted to. I'm the heavy lifting parent between my hubby and I. So, I wouldn't want to spend any more than 45-50 hours per week working... but I'd prefer 35 to 40 hours. I used to spend 60-70 hours per week working as a full-time teacher and I never had any energy for my kids. This is one of the reasons why I preferred substitute teaching. So, I would never want to go back to that as long as I have kids at home. Plus, I can schedule my work times for times that my daughter is at school as well. So, that's really good. Now, if you wanted to have like a 6 or 7 figure business, you might have to spend that 80 to 100 hours per week. But if you want to make it in a modest way, then there is no need for that if you play your cards right.

I have come more to the conclusion that the experience of being human with all its limitations has a value of its own. So, I don't get extremely curious about these "What else is out there?" kind of inquiries, as what I seek is something very mundane and close to home. So, I know that if I explored to the fullest extent of my humanity, that I would come across quite a lot of new truths... as I have been. And I'm not completely bereft of curiosity in that range. But I know that I would become acclimated to the novelty after a very short time, just as I have with all other bits of novelty and newness. The other side of the pillow is relieving for a moment, but quickly loses its charms. What I'd really be after is the feeling of innocence in experiencing a completely new thing. But innocence is not in an experience that's novel... it's much closer to home.

You don't choose how much masculine or feminine is in you. It is pre-conditioned. So, everyone has a unique masculine/feminine signature that ebbs and flows in a predictable way throughout their life. It is not something that you can make a conscious effort to develop or manipulate. You must simply tap into whatever happens to be there, and realize your full potential regardless of what it's labeled. Now, chances are that you'll be mostly masculine because you are male. Most men are mostly masculine with just some feminine. So, it's natural for you to have a more masculine slant to your personality. But don't write over your natural masculinity with societal notions of masculinity. And don't repress your femininity in an attempt to cleave to those societal notions of masculinity either. Just own and integrate whatever happens to be there regardless of the polarity, and the Yin and Yang will work together in intercourse with one another to exalt you to your highest. Don't just have sex... be sex.

He recommends this because people are androgynous by nature. So, if you don't integrate your feminine side, it just leads to lowered consciousness and repression. It's the same with women and their masculine side. It's there no matter what. They can't get rid of it. So, a woman can either choose to integrate it or choose to repress it and become less highly developed. And men who repress their feminine side will still have femininity... it will just be shadow femininity because it's repressed and unconscious. Men who have a disintegrated feminine side are both brutish and shrewish. They are often very passive aggressive, bitchy, and petty as well as just annoying to be around. Without the feminine side, you get a very immature version of masculinity that's not stable. And ironically, they will be very "beta", as many people like to call it... despite trying their damndest for the opposite.

Could be just desensitization to screen violence or detachment from emotions in general. If you were a sociopath, you'd be mostly or completely unable to feel emotions in general. It would affect your ability to function in life too. So, if emotions aren't an everyday mystery and issue for you, then you're probably okay.

NOOOOO!!!!!! But yes... I guess. It will turn everyone Vegan, so that's awesome. But NOOOOO!!!! It will keep you up at night for days afterward.

I live in America... Florida to be specific. Teenage Blue is when teenagers are discovering their preferences and creating values to live by. So, they take them very seriously, and they don't stray from those values. Some of these values might match the status quo. But others may not. It is specific to the teenager. For example, when I was a teenager, I was a stoner who valued being laid back and non-judgmental. I also appreciated creativity, iconoclasm, and rebellion against the status quo. I also valued hard work, excellence, and getting good grades. I also valued being a good person and accepting others. I also valued, doing illegal but "non-harmful-to-others" things like smoking pot, doing graffiti, etc. I appreciated the irony of being two ways that many adult "Blues" would see as incongruent. I valued being interesting over most other values. I valued diving deep into the strange. I also valued my romantic, familial, and friendship-based relationships. I also valued not having sex outside of a relationship (once I got to be about 15). This time period was all about making decisions about what I valued and how I wanted to conduct my life... and what it means to conduct a good life. These don't really look like Blue values. But the way that I related to them was very Blue. I thought that I had the best values and the most righteous values. I felt a sense of superiority over others who did not have these same values. So, it didn't manifest in the way that Blue tends to manifest for adults, as adults's Blue values usually mirror the status quo. But my relationship to my values definitely had a strong mix of Blue. Teenage and adult Orange tend to manifest as industriousness and developing a strong work ethic. Also, the ability to set goals and reach them and to have an overarching career vision for one's life. And valuing success, accolades, and financial rewards. The ability to work longer hours and set strategic plans for the future also come up in Orange.

Preferences are just part of the way the human aspect works. All things within duality work a particular way... including human beings. It is a feature of human beings to have particular preferences. Animals have preferences as well. Chairs do not have preferences. This is also an aspect of how duality works. Preferences come as an outgrowth of emotions. Emotions are an outgrowth of the workings of the body and the mind. Body and mind are also aspects of duality. So, understand that becoming enlightened doesn't mean that your human aspect will cease to have emotions and preferences. The human aspect will keep functioning as it always had. Duality will keep doing as it always has. Nothing will change. People will still feel and like certain things and not like certain other things. Frogs will still ribbit. Cars will still go vroom. The illusion of duality will still continue to be the illusion of duality. The only difference will be that you'll realize your deepest nature... which is the creator of all of reality and the created at once. You will still be human and have human emotions, in the human aspect. But you'll realize that you extend far beyond just that aspect. So, don't be at war with preferences. This is conditionally loving and invalidating of an aspect of infinity... and it will set you apart from the deepest aspect of yourself that created duality perfectly... and created human beings with preferences.

I'm 29, and I'm a substitute teacher who spends most of their days around middles schoolers and high schoolers. Most of them are developing Blue and Orange because they are learning to be industrious and setting clear values for themselves. I've never seen a healthy teenager that wasn't in the process of developing Blue... though I have seen plenty who are still deeply Red. A highly developed teenager has left Red behind completely, is mostly Blue and Orange, and has developed a little bit of Green. Now, teenage Blue may not seem Blue because it doesn't very much resemble the dogmatic and puritanical nature of Blue adults. But because it is about setting down clear values and sticking to them, it is still Blue. And it's highly necessary. Again, I would have labeled myself Yellow as a teenager. I was a highly developed teenager, in fact... very forward thinking. But looking back at the way that I thought, it was mostly Blue/Orange with some Green. But Blue was a major component even though I was quite against the Blueness of adults. I was iconoclastic... but I was still Blue with regard to my own values. And this was an important developmental step. It was part of getting to know myself and my preferences and values. And trust me, teenagers are 99.9% the same as they were 10-15 years ago. The only differences are that they care a bit more about politics because of the political situation we're now in, and the trends are slightly different. Other than that, teenagers are teenagers. They're still doing the same things in very similar ways. And I've been in classrooms as a teacher-figure since I was 19 years old when I started doing Practicum. So, I've been teaching since I was just a year older than the oldest students. Trust me... there has been no major shift.

Developmentally speaking, there is a strong need for Blue up until the later teens. So, understand that you're still growing through it. It's a necessary step in your development. Now, I would have totally rejected that at age 15 because I was always a deep thinker who was interested in out of the box things. I know that I would have pegged myself at Yellow if I were into Spiral Dynamics at the time because I valued personal development even then. But in hindsight, I can see that I was a mix of Blue, Orange, and Green. Mostly Orange and Blue but with a touch of the nuanced thinking and the acceptance of Green. But you have to understand that the Blue of the teen years isn't like the Blue of the adult years as Blue is developmentally appropriate for teens. The Blue of the teen years help teenagers develop a clear value system, which is something that is important in decisions making. The Blue of the adult years, creates stagnation, rigidity, and judgment if they don't grow through it. So, when this stage is appropriate to the age, it is very helpful with regard to growth. It's a very important rung on the ladder that should not be skipped over or ignored. So, understand that it's highly improbable that you've gotten to Yellow at the age of 15... nor is it important to be at Yellow at your age. There is no value in skipping up stages at your age. It would be highly unstable for you to try to develop Yellow before you have your Blue, Orange, and Green foundations set. Just feel okay with being on the right track, and understand the Yellow will likely bloom at some point in your 20s if you keep working on it. But it honestly takes certain rights of passage and the blood, sweat, and tears of adulthood as well as the development of adulthood to make the quantum leap to Yellow. It also takes perspective. And for girls... don't look for Yellow girls your age. You won't find them. Yellow requires adult development. Just find a girl who's left the emotional volatility of Red behind completely, who has been working on the values of Blue and is in the process of growing through it. And she should also be developing the industriousness of Orange and have goals and dreams, and have some Green to her with regard to acceptance and forward-thinkingness. Then you'll be golden. There are plenty of teenage girls on the track to higher consciousness who have this mix. So, understand that Spiral Dynamics works different for children and teenagers. A child who is at Purple or Red is average. But a child who has begun to develop Blue is highly advanced and expanding. An adult who is stuck on Blue is behind and stagnating. A teenager who is at Blue is average. A teenager who has begun to develop Orange is also highly advanced compared to their peers, but an adult who is at Orange is just average. And many adults never make it to Orange.

I had a similar realization in a similar scenario... only it was my cat. This was probably four or five years ago now. But my cat was trying to go underneath he bathroom sink, and was trying to get the cabinet door open like they normally would. But there was a step stool in front of the cabinet. So he jumped up on the step stool and tried to open up the cabinet door... but the step stool they were standing on was blocking it. Now, the step stool was light and definitely would have moved had the cat not been standing up on it. But it was obvious that the problem was just incompatible with the cat's abilities. So, I began thinking about the limitations of the human mind, and all the times when we're trying to open the cabinet door an are blocking it without realizing that there's a simple solution that we're just not able to understand.

Maybe try to flirt a little bit with her. Nothing too major... but just enough to give her the suspicion that you might be interested in being more than friends. Suspicion here is an important word. If you are too direct, she won't have anything to figure out. And when women are figuring out a guy's intentions it's often when the attraction comes about. Otherwise, just keep it lighthearted and like you would normally approach the conversation... only weave in a tiny bit of innuendo and/or flirting.

Unfortunately, that video is just a child that's had writing from the Quran etched into their skin... likely by their parents or some other caregiver. So, it doesn't mean that anything about the truth or falsehood of Islam. Now, if for some reason it was legitimate, and the child did happen to have writing from the Quran mysteriously appear on their skin, why in your mind does that make Islam true? There is an assumption that I've seen echoed in Christian circles as well. Somebody will have a piece of toast and the crispy parts sort of look like Jesus's face. So, they assume it is a sign from God that shows that Christianity is true. But why? So, even if it were so that these things were legitimately there and not the work of people who actually made those situations happen, why would that mean that Islam, Christianity, or any other religion is true? And why does it make them the only true religion?

I think the first step in getting a sense of clarity is to meet your most basic needs first. So, find a basic job and move out from your family's home. From this new place, it is likely that new insights and desires will arise. But right now your desire to be free from this situation makes it to where other desires can't be focused upon and stay buried in the unconscious or semiconscious regions of the mind. Also, you are young. Don't feel like you're behind. Remember to always put on your pants one leg at a time and without rushing... otherwise you'll trip and fall on your face and take more time in your haste. A stitch in time saves nine. So, take things one step at a time. First get a basic job. Then save up some cash. Then move into a cheap place with some friends or room-mates. Then, set a deadline for yourself to begin working on your business. Then, create a plan of action. Then, take each step on that plan one at a time. And eventually you'll get there.

How is putting pressure on government officials entail using violence? It's not anymore using violence than a boycott is using violence. It's not anymore violence than electing not to vote for those who don't share my values and the interest of the common good. Also, I support some degree of government regulation on big business. There's reason for the government to make laws that protect workers and the environment from powerful corporations. But this isn't violence either. This is checking and balancing the power of big business so they can't abuse that power as easily. Of course, this doesn't work when politicians are in the pockets of big business. So, the way you stop big business from abusing their power is to get big money out of politics... which is also not violence.

Again, like I said. We need to take personal responsibility insofar as we are able to. And this will create a demand for real systemic change. So, yes. Personal responsibility is a necessary step. But it's also important to realize that personal responsibility won't be sufficient to address this issue. And that we realize who the major players in the pollution game are. One percent of the population that takes an interest in these kind of things might go zero waste. But 1% of people going zero waste will never turn the tides in the way that they need to be turned. And it will never be above 3% fo people going zero waste unless there are major changes to our social structure, government structure, and economic structure. So, unless we realize this, we will keep shifting 100% of the responsibility onto individuals as opposed to the system that creates these issues... and those who benefit most from those systems. Until we address these issues on the macro level, the only people doing the work will be the 1% of people chipping away at a glacier with a soup spoon... and the 1% will almost always be people who more than have their needs met. For the poor and working class people, the focus will be on survival from paycheck to paycheck, without regard to things higher on Maslow's hierarchy. And to expect more is being unrealistic. So, the best ways to combat climate change are when we put the most pressure on big business and government officials. These actions have a much larger net impact than individually going zero waste or doing any other act of personal responsibility. Again, personal responsibility is good and necessary. But it's unrealistic to expect society to change without the power structures changing.