My walk was glorious this morning! It was probably one of the best feelings I've ever felt. As far as walking to make sure I don't get depressed and groggy in the morning when I sleep in...? I think it will work! (20 more days.. until it's a habit)
On my walk, I noticed that it was garbage day, and since I was just sort of letting my mind wander and not really contemplating too much, just allowing, I started noticing what people threw away in their recycling bins. Juice boxes, yogurt containers, cereal boxes, milk cartons, pop, beer, and juice cans, laundry detergent bottles... etc. Then I started thinking about the economy and how most of us our kind of low on cash these days.
When my grandma was little, growing up in Nelson B.C, it wasn't abnormal to be incredibly frugal, actually it was common, because.. well it makes sense! When the sheets on the bed wore out, her mother would cut them in half down the middle (where they were most worn) and sew them up on the other sides.. so that the outsides which were least worn were now in the insides, and the children could get another year or so out of them. Paper was re-used, string was re-used, vegetables were grown, etc.
Nowadays, we have the convenience factor to deal with. After the depression, and the wars people started wanting to spend, because they had money, and convenience was...convenient. Fast food restaurants started to spring up EVERYWHERE, food started to get processed and frozen, and everything just became... easier! It still was understood though, that if you were light on cash, those conveniences got left, and you opted for the cheaper option.
In my generation, I think we see "conveniences" as absolutes. We can't live without them. We can't imagine living without them, because, they were there all our lives. Paper towel, paper napkins, cotton balls, cotton swabs, windex, packaged bread, frozen food, macaroni and cheese, "just add water" meals, juice boxes, individual yogurts, microwave popcorn, microwave dinners, CARS!, internet connection, cable t.v, canned food, fast food! Everything that we want, we can get, pretty cheap whenever we feel like it. But all these things add up to a lot of money... and aren't really good for our bodies... or the planet.
It would be nice, if everyone over night just, STOPPED. But that's naive. People aren't going to just stop using all these convenient things, because they're convenient, and the owners of McDonalds, CocaCola, Kellogs, Kraft, Pepsi, etc. know this. They aren't in it for us, or the planet, but more for money, which is what most people are striving for anyways.
That's disgusting.
I don't think I could ditch all those things all at once, or even all of them all together. But I do think that I could ditch one thing at a time. It takes 21 days to form a habit, I could ditch paper products that I don't need (paper towel, paper napkins, kleenex, cotton balls etc (everything but toilet paper :P)) and use alternatives like, dish rags, cloth napkins, a hanky, etc, and by the end of that, I will have successfully given myself a good habit, and used renewable resources. One hanky, dish cloth, and cloth napkin thrown in with my laundry, won't raise laundry costs, and it will lessen my family's grocery bill, maybe not by much, but at least a little.
I want to slowly get rid of not needed conveniences until I am more frugal, and happy with my effect on the planet. Right now, I throw too many things away. (It's funny how many recycle, yet, the slogan goes "reduce, re-use, recycle" meaning first we reduce our use of things, then when re-use whatever we can, and if we have to we recycle... it's almost as though those first two words don't exist...)
I have a plan that in the end of the summer I will have gotten rid of a lot of not needed things, and that I will be able to do a one week retreat where I don't use any conveniences. I think it would be good for clarity, peace, and will just take me out of the influences of marketing, etc. So I'm excited about that! But I do need to work up to that point... Starting.. today! No more not needed convenient paper products!
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