So I was cleaning my room yesterday, which at first seemed to have no relevance whatsoever to the green project at hand (but was still 500% necessary...if you saw my room pre-clean, you'd understand!) But then it got me thinking. My room was bad. It was awful, actually. Papers piled to the ceiling. Stuff scattered around that had no business being there, and was simply a product of me being too "busy" to actually clean it up. Full of crap I don't need and never use. And honestly, I barely ever stop to even notice. Things just seem to accumulate. Before I know it, my environment is littered with stuff that covers up the natural simplicity and beauty it could have, if I just took a few extra seconds here and there to take care of it.
And then I realized that my room is a microcausm of what happens on our planet.
Small, tiny destructive things we do that we think couldn't possibly matter at the time in the grand scheme of things...they slowly add up. A bunch of paper wasted on a printed rough copy....a plastic bottle of water bought... an article of clothing purchased that's not needed...and before you know it, you've got this big mess on your hands and you're going "how the hell did this happen?!" That's kind of the point we've reached as a species. We are me standing in the middle of my room, finally starting to notice how many unnecessary things there are around, how much pollution there is, and how beautiful it could be if we were just a little bit more mindful of the little things. Mindful of consumption. Mindful of our planet as being chalk-full of incredible, but limited, resources. I don't know about you, but to me stuff sometimes seems endless in our society...we're so far removed from the source of where things come from that they might as well just be magically appearing out of nothing. But it's crazy, and a bit scary, to think that actually...they're not. We're using up things that can and will run out one day, at the rate we're going. Wow. Imagine what that would look like. I don't even think I can...or want to, honestly. Mental pictures of a cold steel future, like something out of a sci-fi movie, are flashing through my mind.
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| I shudder to think how much paper I use in a month...probably at least this much. |
Small, tiny destructive things we do that we think couldn't possibly matter at the time in the grand scheme of things...they slowly add up. A bunch of paper wasted on a printed rough copy....a plastic bottle of water bought... an article of clothing purchased that's not needed...and before you know it, you've got this big mess on your hands and you're going "how the hell did this happen?!" That's kind of the point we've reached as a species. We are me standing in the middle of my room, finally starting to notice how many unnecessary things there are around, how much pollution there is, and how beautiful it could be if we were just a little bit more mindful of the little things. Mindful of consumption. Mindful of our planet as being chalk-full of incredible, but limited, resources. I don't know about you, but to me stuff sometimes seems endless in our society...we're so far removed from the source of where things come from that they might as well just be magically appearing out of nothing. But it's crazy, and a bit scary, to think that actually...they're not. We're using up things that can and will run out one day, at the rate we're going. Wow. Imagine what that would look like. I don't even think I can...or want to, honestly. Mental pictures of a cold steel future, like something out of a sci-fi movie, are flashing through my mind.
Okay...my green goal this week is to try to be more mindful of the little things.
xo Janine
xo Janine
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