Ruby’s reasons for hope
I want to live in a community where there’s fairness to older people and young mums can have their babies looked after… I want my focus to be on communities. They light me up
While researching her book, ‘And Now For The Good News’, Ruby Wax spent time with inspiring people who are leading innovation and influencing a brighter future for humanity. She explains…
too – with stuff that doesn’t work!
Now, I want to go smaller. I rent a Nano house in the countryside to write in, which is tiny and clean and simple. It has a huge window where I sit at my Ikea desk and look at the view. I’m happier there than anywhere.
It’s comfortable here but I want to find meaning. I think so many people, no matter how much they have, especially after the pandemic, want to find meaning.
Nothing will change without changing the lens
through which we see the world. There is a new world view waiting in the wings to replace the old one. Tiny changes can add up and promote change.
My book offers a directory of possibilities for people.
My quest for green shoots of hope took me all over the world. I figured there must be innovators creating a new paradise and I’m going to find them. In Finland, I visited progressive schools where empathy and wellbeing are taught. I was particularly impressed by the clothing company Patagonia in California, where there’s an on-site creche for employees’ children.
I thought I’d be out of my mind with anxiety
joining volunteers at a refugee camp on the Greek island of Samos, but the opposite happened. Talk about happy! You are facing people who really need you, and the minute you turn on kindness and compassion, your whole body feels good, and people return that goodness.
I did all these things because I needed to walk the walk –
to see people who are living and working in different ways around the world and helping others.
Ruby Wax’s book ‘And Now For The Good News: To The Future With Love’ is out now (Penguin, £14.99)