I’m not a crazy cat lady, but if you follow me on Instagram you’ll soon notice that my cat is ehmm … important to me. Last week I got some snappy comments from some former colleague of mine (FCM).
Here’s how her somewhat unkind messages reminded me of a wonderful environmentalist who actually knows how to bring the message across.

endangered species
Two tiny cans of tuna were in the picture I had uploaded to Instagram. “Are you actually feeding your cat an endangered fish?” was a question posted by FCM.
Not knowing why, I immediately started to defend myself. “ Well, it’s not bluefin tuna” I wrote. “The only species that is not endangered yet, is the albacore tuna” was FCM’s reply. But, she added that one wouldn't find that in cat food. Obviously.
“ Well I don’t believe it to be a problem if I only buy it once a year” I said, in a desire to end the discussion. I was getting really weird to talk about the food I bought for my cat on his birthday. Then she wrote “Well, it’s a choice. And I wouldn't be my choice” “I will tell my cat you said that” was my answer. This was getting out of hand.

guilty
The stupid thing was: I felt busted, genuinely busted. I really do my best to be green. But, apparently all my efforts are not enough. So depressing. It made me want to quit all my green behaviour and just start a what-the-hell-lifestyle.
Especially when she wrote “I guess I expect to much of people”.

positive
But then I knew: GIWW was wrong. Here message was probably true and she meant well but she was wrong for barking at my tree.
And she was barking in the wrong way. If she would have adressed me in a more positive way, this could have worked. She was wrongfully targeting her audience.

Anne Walraven
But then I thought of Anne Walraven. She was on TEDx Delft stage in October 2013. Being an environmentalist, she noticed she was used to communicating 90% about all the problems that the world faces and only 10% about the solutions. We tend to focus on the 90% doom.
What we need to do however is communicate our dreams and our visions of where we want to go, Anne Walraven says: http://youtu.be/KFgXXWjza8I

monkey wrench
So it would have been better to tell me where I could by the right cat food. Or, maybe even send me a can of it, gift wrapped.There’s always a positive plot twist to bring to the story.
But just telling people they’re wrong won’t make them go right. Telling people how despicable their behaviour is, will not educate them. It will only throw a monkey wrench in the works.