I used to wonder if one person could make a difference. This wasn’t a philosophical exercise that I pondered in some detached way.  For me, this question was more critical than that. I tried to ignore it by keeping busy with social events and classes (this was before I had my kids), but I couldn’t run from the nagging notion that there might be a bigger way to live my life.   The possibility at least offered a promise that there could be meaningful work beyond my IBM cubicle, which had begun to close in on my like a cage.  So in 2003, still without answers, I took the plunge and resigned from my job.

A steady paycheck wasn’t overrated in those days (or any day), so I don’t want to sound blasé about the decision.  Leaving behind a good job to start over in sales was difficult on many levels. I had worked extremely hard to build a career in management consulting with a top firm.   But I hadn’t done it for any more compelling reasons than to make money and have a title.  Like any other ambitious person, I wanted to be somebody.  Yet, in trying so hard to do so, I had become somebody else.  I was more or less okay with this until my eyes began opening to what I might be missing.   

My kids love Dr. Seuss, so for Christmas we gave them The Lorax.  I don’t know how I reached age 36 without reading this brilliant 1971 classic. Now that I have, I think it the single most imaginative presentation of the tension between industry and environmentalists ever written.  The story opens when a boy comes to a desolate corner of town to hear the story of “the Once-ler” (a green being who is never shown throughout the book except for his arms and legs).  After the Once-ler receives payment from the boy (consisting of 15 cents, a nail, and the shell of a great, great, great grandfather snail) he recounts how he first arrived where they now stand, back then a beautiful forest of Truffula Trees, colorful woolly trees that supported various fantastical creatures.  As soon as the Once-ler drives his covered wagon into this paradise, he becomes so enamored with the fuzzy tufts of the Truffula trees that he sets about cutting them down to make Thneeds.   Why?  Because “a thneed is a thing that everyone needs!”

The Lorax, a short furry animal resembling a sea otter, enters the picture as “a voice for the trees” (think annoying environmentalist, but cuter).  From the time the Once-ler chops down his first tree until he cuts down the last, the Lorax keeps trying to warn him of the dangers to the Bar-ba-Loots, who survive on Truffula fruits. The Swomee Swans and the Humming Fish also suffer from pollution and smog of the thneed factories.