“Choices make a Habit; Habit build a Culture and Society”
A megacity like Mumbai seem to be bursting at all the wrong ends or need I say right ends made wrong. There are potholes everywhere, trees being cut and debris being dumped. There are ponds being reclaimed in the name of development and disease of #Mindlesshonking we have to deal with.
There are countless discussions/gossips and blame games being played out in the trains, the roads or the local tea stall. Hawkers usurp public spaces just as car repair garages usurp public roads and footpaths to keep their inventory of “Used Cars” for sale.
The ubiquitous question to ask “Are we a society spoiled for choices of “wrong habits” or did our “wrong habits” spoil the society?
I believe so and needless to add, we need to view it through the lens of “System Thinking” to appreciate the chaos and the seed of potential this chaos holds for making a better society.
Where or What do we really stop and reboot the system to a saner city?
It all begins with me and my choices, which translates to a “We”. We have to consciously create new choices, new habits and new routines to make our society less noisy, more orderly, clean and livable. We have to resist the comfort of the old routines, and move to new routines, supporting each other in these new choices.
It is far easy to fall back into old routines when the majority of society continue in this vicious loop, than to be torch bearers of a new routines and habits. We have to consciously remind ourselves of this truth – we begin as a #Minority and build into a #Majority.
M + M + M + …… = Better Society
where M = Minority and M also = Majority
We need to create #minisocieties of #NewHabits of high quality civic sense, no honking and no littering habits, no gay-walking when the traffic signal is RED and definitely exercising our VOTES to a more conscious and literate government administration. There has to be a beginning somewhere and I somewhere believe in my heart, it is already started. We just need to #CallOut and #Sticktogether to bring this shift in our civic society. We need to persevere and persist together.
There is HOPE that when we start doing these new routines, we will reach a critical mass of people for the tilt to happen to a new and better Mumbai.
While the context is #Mumbai specific, this may well be a universal story of living in mega cities of noise, dust and pollution. As you read this, I urge you to identify how you and we can together bring the sanity back into our lives, our society and our city.
As a family, here are 3 of the routines we follow:
1) We lead a #Television free life, leading to more communication as a family. Happy families are often the corner stone of a happy society.
2) We are into #Composting and we recycle all our dry waste. We also teach others about #Composting.
3) We plant at least one tree every year.
I can only request you humbly to please share some of your #Habits that make our society a better and saner place to live.
–#SJ