Before I get to my chosen social responsibilities , I think it’s important for you to know that I believe the essence of what differentiates us, modern humans, with the humans living in the middle ages is the social rights and responsibilities modern democratic western civilizations brought into our lives. Before this, and something many people in third world countries still face in present times, there was no cohesive societal structure wherein one can develop themselves with the communal amenities western societies give their citizens as their birthright. In the middle ages the only right you had was the right to defend and take care of yourself (and eventually your inner circle of people you lived with) for example by providing for food you either cultivated and//or scavenged, or worked for others like for “noble people” to provide yourself with a modest living, a home and food to eat.
There is great comfort in western societies and this comfort eventually even brought now peace, as in non-violent aggression between states, in most western societies. The problem herein lies in the fact that this peace is now inherently linked to this great comfort we created and once this comfort vanishes it will be hard, maybe even impossible to contain this peace between nations. We will most definitely lose this comfort when we degrade our planet in such a state that there will not be anything anymore we can do to prevent our planet to become inhospitable for humans (and most animals and plants) in most regions, if not all. My blog is not to paint a dark picture. My intention with this second paragraph is to give a serious warning to anyone reading this who are still doubting or even refusing to believe and acknowledge the damage we humans are doing to our planet.
For everyone else doing their part helping in turning the tide of the ongoing mass extinction of animals and plants caused by among other; the destruction of their habitats, heating of our planet and acidification of our oceans, you need to remember and never doubt that your actions, however small at this moment, does make an impact.
The thing is that, the great comfort we have here in the western societies, at least when you see it from a “feeling” or “perception” standpoint, does never need to vanish to save our planet. It only needs to change, or put another way, only our expectation of it needs to change while we can keep experiencing the same (or even greater) level of (collective felt) satisfaction from the new (green) great comfort. With the rights and responsibilities we gave ourselves in western societies, we started embracing the privileges we have without accepting the extra responsibilities these privileges came with.
You are right when you say that humans can be evil, because we humans in the past and in the present are still doing some evil things to each other, but you are never right when you say that humans are inherently evil. I have yet need to talk to a person who killed someone or an animal (or more people and/or animals) who can say with a straight face or even smiling face that they’ve enjoyed doing it. People in slaughterhouses don’t enjoy killing animals, same as a pathologist doesn’t enjoy doing an autopsy on a death body. I believe most people in these professions understand the need for their jobs in our societies and have respect for the responsibility they carry in performing their duties. Only absolute psychopaths and sociopaths would enjoy hurting others, and luckily for us, there aren’t many people who’s mental state get to become so detached from the essence that makes us biological social beings.
Even most people now disbelieving in climate change, or human caused climate change, are not evil people who don’t care for our planet. I’m sure a great deal of them love animals, are volunteers in charitable organizations, and don’t walk around littering their neighborhoods. Most of the (human caused) climate change disbelievers are like that because they are either not convinced we are causing it so they believe we cannot also do anything about it, they are afraid of the costs and (financial) sacrifices needed to invest in green technologies and environmental regeneration efforts, and most importantly they don’t want to even think of losing the (great) comfort they already have.
The latter reasons are of course all negative-egotistical reasons for not wanting to take action to help better our planet for ourselves and future generations, but they are also mostly reasons that cannot be embedded as being either factual or optimal in our current reality. This gives opportunity to incentivize people to re-evaluate their positions and come themselves to the conclusion that they too can contribute for a much better present for the collective self and a much better future for all of us and next generations. All negatives can get a positive sparkle, when all positives lose their sparkle and become negative, then is when all hope for our planet dies too.
One thing that can greatly help is if governments start taking the birthright people have to live on a biodiverse planet seriously. When governments start showing people that they take their right for breathing clean air and their right for drinking clean water seriously, people will start taking the responsibility for their own lives more seriously. If you feel that you’re on your own, it becomes easier to not take responsibilities for things you don’t think are in your control. When people know that their government takes their rights seriously, they also start taking the responsibility in being able to keep enjoying that right.
In regards to the social responsibilities I’ve chosen to help give future generations the same privilege of enjoying these responsibilities within our societies, they all relate to one thing, my desire and conviction to help others. Of course, I know that I personally cannot help everyone at once with their needs and some people even wouldn’t want my help for x reasons. In the past, I need to confess that I did seek or took the challenge of helping someone who either needed help but didn’t want to be helped, or wanted help but didn’t want to do the effort themselves to improve their situation. Both situations are exhausting and 9 out of 10 unproductive and yields (almost) no results. Nowadays, since having adopted the 5P-Formula in my life, when in such a situation I tell the person my honesty in why I cannot help and if I know someone in my network who’s either specialized and/or have the expertise to help in such cases (if they have been able to deal with my honesty), I facilitate a meeting between the parties.
I’m single and people ask me if I’m not planning on getting my own family. I understand this question because there is no future generation to hand over the responsibilities of safekeeping this planet if we ourselves don’t create and raise the next generations. The answer to this question I give is always simple, but in this blog I want to expand it further. Because the simple answer is that since I became a sperm donor in 2009, I did it among other for not to worry about the “biological act of creation” anymore and so that I get room in my life to be able to completely focus on my career and the things in society I wanted to see become better. For full disclosure, I am not against marriage, nor I am saying that I won’t ever get married or raise my biological children myself. I am only saying for that to happen things would need to fit in my plans. Also, in regards to marriage, people might think that I am saying this out of self interests, but I want to get married when every adult can marry with whomever they want, so if 3 or more adults wants to form a household and make it a married household, that should be 100% legal.
Especially when you take our climate challenges into account, making it easier for multiple adults to share a household and even making it easier for multiple adults to raise kids while taking shared parenting needs to be higher on the priority list for governments to facilitate in their countries. If you look for example at the Netherlands, there’s a growing number of one-person households heating whole apartments and houses where 2 or more people could comfortably live. Also economically speaking, buying groceries and household items in bulk is more affordable and many times more environmentally friendly because you’re getting less (plastic) packaging for more items in house.
To not digress from my main point, I see it as a great danger to our western civilization if our current crony-capitalistic system stays being the status quo. Growing up and even coming to study to the Netherlands I was under the impression that I would contribute in changing our system being active as a politician, starting maybe as a public servant. Realizing that I can still contribute on helping the public sector from the outside, while I can have more effect in helping to change the private sector from the inside, made me become a management consultant and social consultant/activist. The work I’m doing with Tiiendemanns Group is merely an extension and addition to what I started with T.C.P.A. Consultancy.
Only, with Tiiendemanns Group I can kill two birds with one stone; change the current capitalistic system while helping to solve our climate problem by tackling social causes in a social-capitalistic way. The latter means in our case that we’ve monetized helping people based on a freemium-businessmodel connected to a corporate profit scheme that is structurally permanently linked to giving significant amounts back to the communities.
The hypothesis is simple, once people realize that they can get same product X, maybe paying for a bit more using our service, but they can afterwards see and experience for themselves what the proceeds of their purchase have contributed to in their neighborhood or other parts of their country, conscious consumers will always choose for shopping at a place where they can also be proud of saying they’ve shopped there. I couldn’t be proud of saying that I bought something from certain companies not worth being mentioned now, so I won’t even dirty my conscious by buying on (e-commerce / social-media-marketplace) platforms even if through google searches I see they offer the lowest prices. I mention Google here, even though in essence they could be seen as (indirect) competitor of the service we’re building. I believe in SDG #17, and that (strategic) partnerships are the present and future, so Google will only become our competitor if they choose to see us as one.
Same with the current capitalistic system, there is a fundamental problem with the current non-profit sector. The non-profit sector is in essence primarily money focused and secondarily focused on helping to solve their (charitable) causes. The reason for this is simple because for most (charitable) causes, without money/funds there is not much you can do. A great example of a non-profit not needing to worry about capital who already showed success in helping to solve their (charitable) causes is the Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation.
I designed Tiiendemanns Group to become a profitable business that creates perpetual liquidity for our charitable organizations, who in turn don’t need to worry about finances and they can fully focus on their charitable goals. I’m 35 years old, I don’t plan on going with pension, but I also don’t expect to need so much time to make Tiiendemanns Group start tackling it’s charitable goals.
More Wild Animals Foundation is the non-profit organization tasked to help turn the tide of the ongoing mass extinction of all types of species with natural ecosystems restorations (1), including re-development or natural restoration of abandoned (precious metals) mines (2) and bringing awareness to the public about our destructive human activities and educating people on how to better co-exist with nature (3).
Connecting Foundation is the non-profit organization tasked by Tiiendemanns Group to help combat homelessness (1) and help children put for adoption get a loving upbringing where they get the same chances of success in life as any other children (2), and help other charities with motivating the public and facilitating the onboarding of volunteers to help with their causes (3).
I am writing this so you can keep me accountable to my words; if by the end of 2030 Tiiendemanns Group hasn’t at least already given a 9-figure donation to our charitable organizations, I will feel like I’ve failed. So by 2030, I fully expect More Wild Animals Foundation and Connecting Foundation to be fully operational and have already successfully executed their first charitable (communal) projects.
If you think you can help, please don’t be afraid to get in contact with me, all help is welcome! Follow my socials or connect with me on there (Twitter @AlvinLeito or LinkedIn @AlvinLeito) if you just want to keep updated on this journey!
