Perception of Need -Next Steps

Hey friends! We're taking the opportunity today to look a bit further into the observations that we have made of our daily lives over the past months. Thank you for sharing your deeper observations everyone :) It is humbling for me to hear others dig so deeply into their lives, their choices, their ethics - so thank you!

For those just joining us this week, we'll do a quick recap. This is part 3 of a process we have been going through in our personal lives- to evaluate the choices we make on a daily basis and their relationship to environmental stewardship. We first made observations of choices or habits that could be IMPROVED upon. After that, we asked ourselves WHY we do these things and came up with ideas of HOW to improve upon them. Here is a list of some of the habits we shared:

1. -I drive everywhere, even if I'm going around the block

2. -I always get a disposable cup when I get a to-go drink

3. -I buy too many groceries and then don't use them all and I throw food away instead of composting it or buying less

4. -I use most of the lights in the house even when I'm not 'USING' them

5. -I use a lot of plastic wrap when I pack my lunch

6. -I throw away recycling sometimes

7. -I buy bottled water - ALL THE TIME

8. -I almost threw away an old shirt, but I didn't - I cut it up into a cleaning cloth

9. -I've never carpooled in my life - I find the idea of it annoying

10. -I take extremely long showers every day

11. -I use more paper towels than I need to

12. -I learned that my favorite clothing company has bad ethics regarding workers :(

13. -I don't recycle because my neighborhood doesn't offer it

14. -I sometimes want to buy organic or free-range but I'd rather save money, but then I waste food sometimes and think I may as well have made a more ethical choice in the beginning and just eat less.

Our goal in the third step was to consider the environment in which we are making decisions, and this is where we arrive at this post today. I am proud of you for taking the time to dig into your daily lives and consider what changes can be made. My life has been (and continues to be) filled with opportunities for self-growth. It isn't always comfortable, that is for certain, but going into these moments knowing that we will be DOING BETTER/BEING BETTER is helpful. One commonality I noticed when talking to some of you is that many of our decisions happen quickly and without much deliberate thought at all. There is a strange illusion in the many modern lifestyles that STAYING BUSY AND DOING TOO MUCH is rewarding - is the way to succeed in every important way. Being too busy can lead us to take the path of least resistance for any action or outcome in our lives. That is to say that if you are living with such a busy sense of urgency, you are likely to waste more (OF EVERYTHING!). When we slow down, we can really start to see where WE are failing ourselves versus where our ENVIRONMENT is failing us.

If you take unnecessarily long showers because your life is stressful and that's where you de-stress, consider other ways of de-stressing that are more environmentally considerate. If it is the warmth of the shower, can you wrap yourself up in a blanket and read a book, or make a cup of tea? If it is the feeling of water or the sound of it, could you visit nature for a bit to encapsulate yourself in those sensations in a 'forest shower' style experience? There are many choices that we make that can be altered to show a greater respect for our place within nature. Many of those alterations are easy and require a simple stepping back and taking a new perspective of ourselves and the reasons behind our choices.

There are choices we cannot make as easily, and those are the ones limited by environmental restrictions. Not having recycling in your neighborhood makes it hard to recycle. If your community offers drop-off points, you could consider that but if you don't have a car then you are again - limited to the availability of public transportation (which is unlikely to drop off at these out of the way locations), or taxis which cost money. This is a case in which economics/politics/societal priorities do not line up. What do you do in these situations? While making small shifts in our habits to DO BETTER is hard, it is something we can each accomplish. These larger, societal pictures that require communal efforts are more difficult to conquer as they are directly related to the state of affairs in the country and state and region and even if "EVERYONE WANTS TO DO THEIR BEST," you'll often find that if the money isn't there. or the time - - - we just can't afford to care.....

I encourage each of us to do better. When you encounter a choice in your life that lacks improvability because of a systemic deficiency - consider what you can do. Start a conversation, ask questions, write a letter, make a phone call. You may not think you are "THAT KIND OF PERSON," but we can all be. There is a tipping point for many systems that are anemic and need resurfacing or overhauling, and often that tipping point lies within people KNOWING about the dysfunctional system in the first place.

Keep digging friends! Keep using our 3 step approach in your daily lives to improve your awareness, your self-growth and your involvement on a larger scale - to be great stewards of your shared environment:

1-what actions/choices can I improve in my daily life?

2-why do I do these things? What alternatives do I have? How can I do better?

3-I have done what I can to do better, but am still limited by systems I operate in. What can I do to push/encourage those systems to change? How can I share my vision with others? Why should I care?

Keep caring, keep improving and remember to take the marathon mentality about life. We are in this for the long haul, so don't try to make quick fixes or assume that one good day means we're set for life. We hunker down and dig every day - because we care.

You guys are awesome! Have a great week, Sarah