Sustainable Living is Choice
What happens when we step off the hamster wheel? Can we choose sustainable living when we choose not to rush? For some, the thought of this change is terrifying because of the fear associated with the unknown.
But during the last two years, everything changed and some discovered another world waiting. Not rushing to catch that early morning flight or long hours in traffic to get to that important meeting meant time at home. It was unfamiliar and maybe in the beginning it was welcomed but after six months, something was missing for anyone wanting to get back to normal.
For many, this was an opportunity to reconnect with family. This new way of living may have been foreign but things we never expected to occur disrupted our routines in a blink of an eye. And we each had to face ourselves in ways we never imagined. We were each given an opportunity to have a massive shift in perspective and a new relationship with our lives, each other and our natural surroundings.
We don’t have to travel far to understand what Anthony Bourdain reminds us: “Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.”
What’s Available Now?
We are each standing at our own intersection now; no one knows much of anything as the veil of reality is lifting for the curious courageous to embrace this time of transition.
We are not here to correct each other. We are here to create together. To dream, to imagine and see possibilities.
And we have abundant opportunities to choose how we react and who we create with. We are here to connect to ourselves, each other and our natural environment, especially during challenging times.
The Five Agreements guide us to consider whether this is truly time for sustainable living:
- Free ourselves from assumptions and beliefs: Own how we show up?
- Learn it’s not personal: See everything as part of a larger interdependent story that does not revolve around us?
- Speak with integrity: Practice radical honesty without agendas, judgment, blaming or victimhood?
- Always do out best: Stop competing and trying to win by being our best version of ourselves and knowing our enough?
- Listen to the intent behind words: Walk our talk through conscious choices, healthy discernment and deep questioning?
Jane Goodall joins us: “I like to envision the whole world as a jigsaw puzzle … If you look at the whole picture, it is overwhelming and terrifying, but if you work on your little part of the jigsaw and know that people all over the world are working on their little bits, that’s what will give you hope.”