Naturally High Performance

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Day 6: Can love save the planet?

In Naomi Klein's groundbreaking book 'This Changes Everything' there is a chapter dedicated to Love. Which could be considered pretty surprising given the rigorous, economic and political narrative of the book.

However, in the chapter 'Love will Save this Place' she demonstrates the power of love, and not in a Frankie Goes to Hollywood way.

"The power of this ferocious love is what the resource companies and their advocates in government inevitably underestimate, precisely because no amount of money can extinguish it.", she says in demonstrating how the Heiltsuk Nation's love of place and culture overcame the Goliath-like powers of industry in British Columbia.

This is yet another example of the fact that motivation (where something on the outside pulls or pushes you forward - for example money, power, status etc) is ultimately exhaustible, whereas love, an innate capacity within us, appears to be a limitless resource, and means that people can rise to the occasion and do the extra-ordinary.

Love, an expression of the human spirit and potential, is a practical and powerful aspect of our humanity, and yet we dismiss it as soft, fragile and a luxury. What if we took love, in this context, seriously? And saw that it was a cheap and abundant resource?!

So... if you were going to achieve your aspirations through love - how would it look?