Considering the alternatives, it’s hard to think how “sustainability” could be an idea needing a time to come. Common sense isn’t always common, though.

The pitfall is that the short-term interest can run counter to the long-term interest. I just ate a candy bar, mindful that it’s bad for my weight, but, well. I can do things to mitigate that, so the abstract future is dealt with in the abstract, and the concrete moment is met with direct action and instant gratification.

To burn oil and coal now is the obvious choice, and we hope the future will be dealt with in ways we don’t have awareness of as yet. We trust that, future times, smarter people will invent better methods that will minimize the consequences of our current lifestyles.

Sustainability requires that we behave in ways such that all concerned participants can endorse the arrangement. 

In a house live Mom and Dad and two children. Everyone plays a part in ensuring peaceful coexistence, in creating a culture accommodating of each so all can endorse the arrangement as one in which each plays a constructive part.

The husband has to be the husband and the father. He has to accept his role as one who sets an example of selflessness, benevolence, and restraint, mindful of the teaching that one should be the servant of all. That simply means using all his resources and abilities for the good of everyone. He has to work with his wife so they are a unified, inseparable team that the children can unconditionally rely on for love, acceptance, support, and guidance. Husbands and wives have traditional roles in providing income and doing housework, but the days are long gone when a responsible husband could expect to come home and do nothing materially constructive.

The wife has to be the wife and the mother. Wives and mothers need no advice from me. But she should be quick to step in and assist the husband who wants to help, but doesn’t do so good at it. A kind word and an unspoken understanding of a father’s frustrations at not being able to do everything and solve every problem are most appreciated. And we all know that’s a two-way street!

Kids need to be respected and appreciated. It’s not their place to do the things we wanted to and weren’t able to. Kids deal with a far more complex world than we did at their age. As adults deal with things their kids couldn’t imagine, so do kids.

Parents need to have faith in their kids, and be patient. They have to live their own lives. A kid has to be himself or herself, and figure that out on the fly, under duress. He or she needs to know he has a safe place at home where he or she will be, if not always understood, at least loved and appreciated.

Parents need to set good examples and trust that, someday, the kids will remember, understand, and emulate behavior worthy of that.

When the short term plan prepares the best possible scenario for the long term, that’s sustainable behavior.

People can run out of patience, just as a field can run out of nutrients because of short-sighted agricultural practices.

People can get overheated when someone keeps polluting the atmosphere with abuse and deception.

But the waves of the oceans roll as they always have, winds blow as they always have, the Sun shines on, upon good and bad alike, as it always has– sustainably, until the end of the age– clean power we’ve always had in abundance all around us.