I’m on this ‘opting out’ kick and I’m seeing keen examples of how opting out creates excellent opportunities for humanity — how opting out is actually a deliberate choice for opting in to something better.
The example I ran into today is MONEY. The Positive Money group in the UK posits that by opting out of our current banking system, we stand to gain big social, economic and environmental improvements.
What does it mean to opt out of the banking system?
First, it’s helpful to realize the extent to which we’re living under the thumb of our current banking system:
The first time I watched that video a few years ago, I was stunned. I totally understand it. But what’s there to do?? It seems so much bigger than me! What does it mean to opt out? What does that even look like?? Like this:
I look at the simple changes recommended and it’s a little hard to find the action I, as an individual, can take to begin my opt out. Living a debt-free life can help, but an ideal that feels only accomplishable against great odds; and as the video says, you paying down your debts means someone else somewhere else is gaining a debt to maintain this system. For now, I’ve signed their petition and have my radar up. I want to better understand how us regular folks can actively make an ‘opt out’ kind of choice. And I want to hear what you think, too.
I add money/banking to my current running examples of things to opt out of, in addition to standardized testing and housing system & dependent energy systems.
What does it mean to opt into YOU?
As I ponder all of these boxes we’ve put ourselves in, I continue to look for personally empowering and tractable ways where I can unplug from things that keep us in these boxes. What is keeping me from being able to plug into this exquisite world and life we have going on right here?
Plugging in kinds of activities could be a lot of things like doing yoga, meditating, focusing on a hobby, going for a walk, paying attention, crafting and maintaining meaningful relationships. But the thing they all have in common is that they all have YOU at the center of them. For me, it’s making art. Art is a way to opt out of scripted experiences by off-roading with my own creativity. I’m opting out of brick brain, coma-inducing systems and zombie-creating programs – I choose to feed my own creativity and artistry as a stop gap measure against being overcome by these things.
Art has inherent in it risk, experiment, failure, growth, reward, adventure, curiosity, wonder, love, excitement and many more things that simply aren’t available to the capacity and lack of limits that anything within a system might try to provide. So this small thing of opting in to me is actually a really huge thing.
What does opting out to opt in mean to you? What are examples in your life?