A question for Tim Peake

Later today Tim Peake, UK astronaut, will be starting his 6 month mission on the International Space Station, and BBC Radio 4's PM programme has asked their audience to send in questions for Tim's first press conference on the ISS. 

Here's my question:

Standing in the shoes of the earth what would your advice to its inhabitants be? 

'Standing in the shoes of another person' is a technique I often use in coaching, and in many workshops too. The idea is to see the situation from the perspective of the other person. 

By physically distancing ourselves from our own perspective we're able to observe our own behaviour, and provide guidance to ourselves on what changes might be helpful to improve the situation. 

Here I'm inviting Tim to act as our missionary. To stand in the shoes of the planet, to leave humanity's perspective behind, and provide guidance on what changes might be helpful. 

Remembering the key to the process is NOT taking your own perspective with you, but leaving it behind and really looking at the situation as if you were the other party. That is standing in their shoes, and from their perspective, what would you think and feel, and what advice would you give. 

Of course we could all try this at home. The challenge we all have however is - can we really get the level of perspective Tim, and the other astronauts on the ISS, will get. Are we able to distance ourselves enough from our own desires to fully understand the situation from the other party's perspective? That is - to fully understand the situation from the Earth's perspective - and I'm not sure we can. 

Many call the perspective I'm asking Tim to share is the Overview effect, and I'm intrigued to hear guidance from this effect in the moment - not many months after the astronauts return to Earth. 

Dear astronauts, and Tim specifically, do please therefore share with us your answer to:

Standing in the shoes of the earth what would your advice to its inhabitants be? 

(PS from 13th February 2016) Whilst not directly responding to my question I suspect I got my answer  see Tim's tweet (press on the pic and it will take you to the tweet with video of the Aurora from the ISS) 

I wondered about including this post on my Purchasing Coach site - after all I've written blogs entitled 'if earth was a supplier' and 'the battle for businesses soul' - both inspired by the current state of the planet as a result of our actions. There's also many rants there on what it means to be human, and our inhumane treatment of each other. In the end however, I made another choice. 

The reason for including this post on my Landscaping Your Life (LYL) blog is perhaps because both the LYL process, and the question, have greater meaning to me. 

LYL uses nature as a metaphor for our lives. That is nature acts as our teacher - providing guidance on what to do next in any situation we're feeling stuck in. Here I'm just expanding that thinking a little more. I'm asking nature to act as our teacher, and to provide guidance on what to do next for a world that seemingly loves getting stuck, and digging it self into ruts, continues to not be able to see the wood for the trees, goes around the circles, treads water, finds itself up a creek without a paddle and then buries its head in the sand, and finally when solutions are found makes mountains (and not molehills) out of those very solutions! 

Alison Smith

Inspiring change inside and out - with a little help occasionally from this planet of ours.