Jason Roberts is changing the world

I read about Jason Roberts earlier this year in Dumbo Feather magazine and was blown away by what he had achieved as an "ordinary person".  To cut a long story short, when looking to buy a house with his wife years ago, he realised they could only afford to live in an undesirable part of town. Instead of being put off by that, he made it his mission to make it a better place to live - and he achieved it.  

He's a co-founder of Better Block, which is a movement that has spread across the globe that revitalises communities.  What they do is pretty cool...look at the Dumbo Feather interview, or the Better Block website, or Jason Roberts's TED talk.

This is a guy whose day job was working in IT, not someone with a degree in town planning.  He shows that you don't have to wait to be asked, or for someone else to start...you can do it yourself.

How to Change the World

I've been meaning to write about How to Change the World by John-Paul Flintoff for ages as it made a big impression on me. It's from the School of Life series so it's short, to the point and full of ideas.  This book is aimed at those of us who like the idea of changing the world in some way, but feel small, ultimately a bit powerless, think it's all too hard and then don't do anything else about it.

The book starts with a chapter on "Overcoming Defeatism" to get us out of this frame of mind and to remind us of the power of ordinary people.  If we want to hold a street party and get frustrated by petty regulations, Flintoff says we have a choice - we can either try to change the silly rules or we can just ignore them.  He talks about Gene Sharp who compiled an astonishing list of methods of "non violent action" - this sounds a bit alarming I know - but it is basically a very long list of ways of "doing something"  (all 198 of them are included in the appendix).  Flintoff says:

"Sharp demands that we remove our blinkers and recognise that political power is our own power - and that it does not reside only at the ballot box"

(Sounds like something Russell Brand would probably agree with based on his recent interview with Jeremy Paxman.)

So - that's the rousing call to action...but for what cause? Flintoff suggests how we can figure out what is important to us - what we actually want to take action on - and how to cultivate a sense of purpose.  There are some exercises in the book to help you work through those questions.

Next he suggests taking stock of your personal skills and qualities so you can work out how best you can help with your chosen cause.  After reflecting on his own experiences and skills, Flintoff comes up with this (which I love):

"I resolved from now on to stop thinking of myself only as a writer. I am also an artist, a baker, a career coach, a carpenter, a cleaner, a cook, a decorator, a dog walker, an English language teacher, a film maker, a gardener, a map maker, a bike messenger, a minicab driver, a qualified first aider, a printer, a publisher, a rubbish collector, a Scout patrol leader, a second hand bookseller, a tailor, a typist, a waiter, a washer up and possibly much else. I have to say that drawing up this list gave quite a boost to my self-esteem." 

He says there are two ways to change the world - to reduce suffering or to increase pleasure.    In the "increasing pleasure" category he talks about art and creativity.  He argues that "when we engage creatively with the world, we are having an impact".  In his mind, this is not confined to the fine arts, it could be making clothes or playing in a band.  Flintoff says

"A good world is not a world where everybody fixates on global problems according to some externally imposed framework of 'importance'. A good world is one in which people find meaning in the particular things they do - and that means a word that has a place for beauty, creativity and play."

In a nutshell then, changing the world doesn't have to be serious and heavy - we can have fun doing it too.  There are some great examples in the book of art projects and social enterprises, one of them is the Craftivist Collective which uses craft in activism.

The remainder of the book talks about where money fits in, how to get others to help, and changing the world in the wider community. There are lots of inspiring stories about people with great ideas, many of them sounded so simple that I thought, wow, I could do that.  I've come across other stories since reading this book that could have come straight from these pages. Just ordinary people doing the sort of world changing things Flintoff talks about in this book.