Let’s get down to work

From David W. Orr, Ecological Literacy:

It is easy…to throw up one’s hands and conclude with the Kentucky farmer that “you can’t get there from here.”  That conclusion, however, breeds self-fulfilling prophecies, fatalism, and resignation–in the face of an overwhelming need to act.  We also have the historical examples of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Alfred Schweitzer suggesting a different social dynamic, one that places less emphasis on confrontation, revolution, and slogans, and more on patience, courage, moral energy, humility, and nonpolarizing means of struggle.  And we have the wisdom of E.F. Schumacher’s admonition to avoid asking whether we will succeed or not and instead to “leave these perplexities behind us and get down to work.”