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I run a non-profit that is anti-growth. I am not interested in the "building an empire" model of ever increasing productivity and annual income, but something that is sustainable. My definition of sustainable is a system where you put more resource in than you extract -- the balance is always towards keeping energy and resource within the system. True abundance is always having a positive balance in the bank so to speak (debt, which runs the capitalist system is the opposite of this). Since I am a valuable resource within the system, to be sustainable it is important that my energy not be completely mined out. I experienced this in my first non-profit endeavor--I was expected as a person "doing good work for the good of society" to give every last bit of my personal resource. I find it amazing that those of us who are socially conscious expect that of ourselves at the cost of our mental and physical health. So if I treat myself as a valuable input into my work I recognize the important of self-care and nurturance--that once my energy and health are tapped my work can no longer happen.
-- K Ruby Blume
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