Change: A Pearl-in-the-Making

Autumn is a good time to consider something that needs changing in your life. As more leaves change colors and eventually give way to their new legacy of providing mulch, envision a change or two for yourself. As R. Buckminster Fuller said, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

Architect Buckminster Fuller was an intuitive systems thinker and futurist. His penchant for creating not just the amazing geodesic dome structure, but also new words, gives us a blueprint for our personal changes. Fuller both coined and initiated the field of Synergistics. His interdisciplinary approach encourages lateral thinking and incorporating nature: “I am confident that humanity’s survival depends on all of our willingness to comprehend feelingly the way nature works.” It is the feelingly comprehension of ALL of us that sent my mind on a search for a further explanation of Fuller’s ideas.

Professor of Leadership at Harvard Business School, Amy C. Edmondson worked as Chief Engineer for Fuller during the last three years of his 87-year life. Edmondson wrote Fuller a letter as an undergraduate student, asking him what people might do to make our planet work for everyone. What a wonderful question for each of us!

Edmonson’s easier-to-comprehend description of Synergistics is ALL about changing our mindset, something that I fully endorse as a psychologist (Fuller Explanation: The Synergistic Geometry of R. Buckminister Fuller). Ready for some mindset change? I have found a few beginner pearls in Synergistics (and life):

  • Let curiosity guide you. Say “image-ination” like Fuller (instead of imagination), because we are the architects of our images.
  • Self-directed examination of patterns and structure in nature will educate you.
  • Stop lying to children by saying, “Watch the sun going down.” This made me wonder why I say, “sunset.”
  • Fuller reminded audiences that we are accustomed to believing that reality is comprised of what one sees, smells, touches and hears, while we actually “live in a world of invisibles.”
  • “…there are no solids; matter consists exclusively of energy.” This is deep.

Most of us will not be known for BIG-C creativity as in Fuller’s producing 28 U.S. patents that gathered recognition in multiple honorary doctorates, but we exhibit little-c creativity whenever we change our mindsets.

Take a peak at Fuller’s childhood. Born to successful leather and tea merchant parents and grand-nephew of Margaret Fuller, the ardent women’s rights advocate, Fuller attended a Froebelian Kindergarten where he was influenced by the same geometric building blocks as Frank Lloyd Wright. This suggests to me that we need to wean school-age children off their gadget dependence to encourage more self-directed mindsets as in creative play, especially in nature.

As British primatologist and anthropologist Jane Goodall reminds us, “Every individual matters. Every individual has a role to play. Every individual makes a difference.”

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz 

335. What difference are you making?

336. What is your current change or pearl-in-the-making?            

Janis Johnston's avatar

By Janis Johnston

Janis Clark Johnston, Ed.D., has a doctorate in counseling psychology from Boston University. She has worked with children, families, and groups (ages 3-83) with presenting issues of anxiety, depression, trauma, loss, and relationship concerns. She initially worked as a school psychologist in public schools and was awarded School Psychology Practitioner of the Year for Region 1 in Illinois for her innovative work. She was a supervising psychologist at a mental health center, an employee-assistance therapist and a trainer for agencies prior to having a family therapy private practice. Recipient of the 2011 Founder’s Award for her dedication to the parenting education of Parenthesis Family Center (now called New Moms), and the 2002 Community Spirit Award from Sarah’s Inn, a domestic violence shelter and education center, Johnston is an active participant in numerous volunteer activities supporting children and families in her community. A frequent presenter at national psychology and educational conferences, Johnston has published journal articles, book chapters, and two books -- It Takes a Child to Raise a Parent: Stories of Evolving Child and Parent Development (2013, hardback; 2019, paperback) and Midlife Maze: A Map to Recovery and Rediscovery after Loss (2017, hardback; 2019, paperback). In addition to augmenting and supporting personal growth in families, Johnston is a Master Gardener and loves nurturing growth in the plants in her yard.