I grew up in two economies.

At Mum’s place, we fossicked through op shops looking for junk we could turn into treasure. We had time, imagination and love. We did not have much money. It was creative and warm and sometimes precarious. Value was something you made with your hands. 

At Dad’s place, there was a waterfront apartment, a spa, important dinners with important people. The lift opened onto parquet floors and conversation about ideas and status. Value was something you earned, achieved and displayed.

Both my parents were feminists. Both cared deeply about justice. But Mum carried Baháʼí-infused spiritual values and it came with laws that were hard to live up to for a curious teen. Dad carried academic and social status values that could also feel hard to satisfy. I experienced love and worth to be conditional, measured against different yardsticks in different rooms.

As a teenager, I chose the fancy road. Of course I did. It instantly placates the ego. And it covers over any low self-worth. 

I wanted recognition. I wanted beautiful things. I wanted to be seen. I did well at school, but it was the arts and drama where I came alive. In my early twenties I partied too much, drank too much, and qualified as a designer. It felt like a miracle: a creative profession with status credibility. My father could understand it. My mother could see herself in it. I could earn decent money. I could be artistic and legitimate to both my parents. 

I did not like being employed. I was too mouthy, too opinionated. So I started a design studio in the early days of what we called new media. Suddenly I had employees, an office in the creative heart of Wellington, theatre and film on my doorstep, restaurants and bars and a very enthusiastic social life. I was chasing success and financial rewards with both hands.

Fancy everything, please.

Then sustainability entered the scene. 2006. An inconvenient truth. 

And I remember, viscerally, how much I railed against it. The idea that my lifestyle was implicated. That my consumption, my flights, my shopping, my appetite for more, was part of the problem. It felt unfair. I did not want to change. I had worked hard for this life, and my identity was completely entangled with achieving material status. 

But something stirred in me. From a simmer to a boil . My work shifted from being about solving design problems towards social innovation; using models of business to engage in the process of social and environmental change. 

I achieved an inner alignment that I hadn’t felt since I was turning trash into treasure with my mum. That sense of accomplishment making something from pure creativity and imagination. And hope-based communication has been a wonderful, creative place to land – where I am matching my skills and passions with what the world needs in these tumultuous times. We all need and deserve that resonance. 

I look at my life now. A humble dwelling near the ocean that needs a paint job. A big rambling section crammed with fruit trees and vegetables. One child. One old car that we keep running because of all that embodied energy. A walkable village where we know almost everyone. Less theatre openings, fewer fancy dinners, more soil under my nails.

It is not the downtown apartment I once coveted. And yet it is rich! So full of life, silliness, creativity and actual joy.

But don’t get me wrong. It’s not perfect. I will forever be tweaking my lifestyle to become more sustainable. And I have also caught my ego playing the game of ‘moral high-ground’ before arriving at a position that is more honest.

What I have come to understand is that this is not a story about virtue. It is a story about congruence. We are all entangled in global supply chains and inherited economic stories. None of us are pure. I am certainly not. But there is a deep relief that comes when our outer lives align, even imperfectly, with what we know to be true about planetary limits, interdependence and care.

As financial means contract and the long arc of empire bends downward, many (all?) of us will have to let go of “fancy.” Not as a punishment but as adaptation.

The invitation, as I see it, is not austerity. It is curiosity. And it is better to choose it than to be forced. 

I have found humble to be a surprisingly hopeful way to live in these times.

The questions are simple, even if the answers take a while to settle. What actually makes a life feel rich? What do we really need? What are we willing to loosen our grip on? What would it feel like to live with a quiet sense of enough. To know that we are taking no more than our fair share.

The move from fancy to humble did not feel noble at first. It felt like loss. Like stepping away from a set of values I had worked hard to belong to. But over time it has felt more like unraveling from a big knot. Less about status, more about relationship. Less about being seen. More about being true.

To arrive at a place where my life makes sense to me, where humility is not smallness, but spaciousness. The pursuit of “less” has quietly turned into a beautiful, deeply satisfying life.

I still love aesthetics. I still love ideas. I still love sparkle. But I am less interested in being seen and more interested in being aligned.

And alignment feels like a better fit inside me than achievement ever did.

Achievement wears off. Satisfaction lingers.

That is the story I want to offer. Not as a ‘blueprint’ –just as a breadcrumb toward a more hopeful way of living, one you can feel harmonious with in your own bones.

Can your work feel more aligned with what the world is asking of us right now?
Can your purchases feel more congruent with the natural systems that sustain us?

These are not moral tests, they are invitations.

We are always being nudged toward a more hopeful way of living. One that is gentler on our nervous systems and kinder to the living world. For our mental wellbeing, and for the welfare of our planet, my experience has been that it is worth following that pull.

Lots of love, Megan

P.P.S This year I am delivering a special executive strategy and support package designed around the needs of Impact Leaders and people heading up small NGO’s. It is proving popular, and this quarter is booked out. So I am now taking bookings for the second quarter.

If you or someone you know operating in the NGO/Impact space are in a state of near burnout and need special support, get in touch.