Regardless of the type of publication I get hold of, I enjoy reading practical tips on
\nhow to live a more eco-friendly life. Just like any other individual on planet Earth, I need to
\ndo better to make sure that I do not turn into a mindless daily polluter. I do, however,
\napproach the subject with some caution, especially when revolutionary projects are being
\nproposed. It is because I believe that we can learn much more from a reflection on the lives of
\nour ancestors (by drawing a comparison between our daily life and theirs) than from hosts of
\npanicked climate alarmists of this day. Let me explain.<\/p>\n
Last semester, my students and I discussed an environment-related segment in our
\nclassroom. The students were moderately interested. Most of them were willing to talk about
\nrecycling and saving water, but since they are not frequent flyers or urban hippies, they did
\nnot get worked up about either excessive use of airfare or plastic straws. To launch the
\ndiscussion, I asked them, \u201cDo you think you are more eco-friendly than your grandparents?\u201d
\nThe first response I received from a young woman in the front row revealed something
\nintriguing. \u201cNo\u2026..\u201d- she responded pensively, \u201cwe are not. Our grandparents were more
\nthrifty than we are, so they used and wasted fewer things. They did not waste resources
\nbecause they needed the money.\u201d<\/p>\n
The amount of money to spend, although the first on the list of major differences
\nbetween the past and the present, is just one factor. There are a few other secret forces that
\nmake us buy more, consume more and produce more waste throughout our lives. I have
\nchosen to focus on our time investments, everyday company and the individual concept of
\nself-realization.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Money<\/strong><\/p>\n Compared to distant generations, you have more money and you itch to spend it.<\/em><\/p>\n Of course, this statement may not ring true in individual families whose income pattern is one Not so much in the past. Most working people had no comparable ritual of big weekend <\/p>\n Time<\/strong><\/p>\n While managing your food may be a part-time job, you have to work overtime to do it well.<\/em><\/p>\n We sure are busy these days. Most of us, however, get to choose the types of things we There\u2019s no getting around the fact that a considerable amount of time is needed to People Around Us<\/strong><\/p>\n If you have your loved ones around, the chances of you craving a new gadget decrease.<\/em><\/p>\n The economic argument in favor of living with other people rather than by yourself is I spent a few years of my life as a single woman in a big city. I was never particularly I\u00a0 spent more on books and entertainment. Last but not least, when a person lives By comparison, an average working person two generations ago lived in a Done? Well, enough.<\/strong><\/p>\n Is it time to talk yourself out of the ‘perpetual upgrade’ urge?<\/em><\/p>\n Some readers might not be particularly fond of reading about tedious routines and small People often give in to the internal or external pressures of perpetual upgrade and extension, Can you draw a line between the actual functionality of an item we buy and the sheer desire to You could probably manage with no more than three pairs of shoes. One for winter, one for While delving deeper into the problem of perpetual upgrades, I discovered a whole mindset ***<\/p>\n Even a perfunctory retrospective reflection on the simpler ways of our grandparents Having said this, I am convinced that it is not a good idea to wallow in eco-guilt: it is great places to start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Regardless of the type of publication I get hold of, I enjoy reading practical tips on how to live a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifesfinest.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifesfinest.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifesfinest.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifesfinest.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifesfinest.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lifesfinest.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":697,"href":"https:\/\/lifesfinest.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695\/revisions\/697"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifesfinest.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifesfinest.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifesfinest.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifesfinest.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nof decline, but if we look at more general trends and the number of things we pick up when
\nwe go shopping with little or no reflection involved, there is a noticeable difference between
\nour spending habits and those of our grandparents. Buying things, bulky or small, has
\nbecome our second nature. We treat ourselves to objects because it feels good and it does not
\nruin us. We itch to buy; even a moderate spender can find it hard to say \u201cno\u201d to an appealing
\nitem if there\u2019s enough money in the wallet to take advantage of the proposed bargain. The
\nmarketers of convenience products have also been working hard on getting our attention when
\nwe are at a shop. The truth is that we are there regularly and we do not come out empty-
\nhanded. We can afford pleasure shopping.<\/p>\n
\nshopping covering multiple floors of a mall because the most basic things to eat came from
\ntheir own farm or local stores. Besides, there was less money to spend on pleasure shopping
\nanyway. Moreover, an average person had little unstructured time because there was always
\nsomething useful to do to make sure the pantry was stocked for the coming winter and
\neveryday chores were more time-consuming. Which confirms, once again, that the
\nrelationship between time and money is not accidental, no matter how we examine it.<\/p>\n
\nwant to do. We get to choose our job, hobby, the level of community involvement and the
\npace of social life, shaping our schedules. On the other hand, we are not required to do a
\nwhole bunch of other tasks, previously essential for survival. Most of us do not have to grow
\nor produce our own food. Instead, we focus on other ways of sustaining ourselves and
\nmeeting our needs by working a job. Taking care of our food seems like it should be an
\nundemanding part-time job compared to the drudgery of past farmers. Still, it requires us to be
\ngenerous of our time if we want to do it right.<\/p>\n
\nmaintain control over your groceries to avoid having to throw them away. If we are in charge
\nof family cooking and refuse to devote enough time to a fair amount of tedious work behind
\nthe scenes, the chances of living a fully eco-friendly life are slim. We end up wasting loads of
\nfood or settling for processed goodies to avoid the trouble. I have learnt it the hard way: when
\nI was on bed rest in the final trimester of my first two pregnancies, I was unable to check on
\nthe fridge produce regularly and I ended up with rotten vegetables or old meat that I could no
\nlonger use. Fridge-management and cooking from scratch are not easy when you lead a busy
\nlife. Besides, sometimes you have to make the time for extra cooking when it needs to get
\ndone so that soon-to-be-expired products or products that you\u2019ve just been delivered get used
\nup. Similarly, if you\u2019ve committed to seasonality, you need time to hunt for the food when it\u2019s
\nthere. Chances are you will be inconvenienced: all of a sudden, there\u2019s an endless supply of
\nstrawberries you need to do something with. Two weeks later, they are all gone.
\nOf course, time is also needed for other eco-friendly lifestyle choices. Take hormone-
\nfree natural family planning: you need a few minutes every single day to observe your
\nsymptoms and temperature and thus figure out in which phase you\u2019re in. Consider cloth
\ndiapers: you wash them, dry them, put the pieces back together before your kid can wear them
\nagain. Several times a week, no excuse. Your willingness to give of your precious time is key.<\/p>\n
\ncommon knowledge. It is always cheaper to live in a pack than to run a one-person household,
\nconsidering the amount of money spent on food, electricity and water. I would venture to say
\nthat living alone also shapes our shopping habits and often makes them less eco-friendly.
\nWhy? When alone, we tend to focus more on ourselves and treat ourselves to all kinds of
\nmerchandise either to feel less lonely or simply because we have more free time to consume
\nboth goods and services.<\/p>\n
\nmaterialistic – besides, my moderate income would not have allowed a lavish lifestyle – but I
\ndid go to shopping centers on Saturdays or Sundays just to be around people and I sometimes
\nended up buying clothes or books or other accessories for pleasure. I definitely generated
\nmore waste as a single person compared to the average per capita figure at my home now.<\/p>\n
\nalone in a city, he\/she tends to go out more to socialize with other people outside of the home.
\nWhen people socialize, they often meet in town where plastic straws and cups abound and it
\nis easy to grab takeaway food or convenience products on the way. Do not get me wrong:
\nseeing people is great. But if a similar pattern of consumption is repeated every day, it is far
\nfrom eco-friendly.<\/p>\n
\nmultigenerational home and was not as starved for human contact as the single city dwellers
\nof today. There was much less need for entertainment after work or coffee in town.<\/p>\n
\ndecisions that make a big difference in the long run, so here comes a more bulky section. On
\nthe one hand, it does concern bulky items, such as furniture or houses. On the other, it is also
\nweighty because I intend to show you that many of our material choices stem from the natural
\nhuman strife for self-improvement and, as such, are not so easy to forgo.<\/p>\n
\nout of fear of being stuck in a status quo. This strife for improvement of one\u2019s surroundings
\nseems to be built into human nature: we modify, we improve, we invent. While doing so, we
\ncan lose the ability to tell the necessary from the superfluous. We have a hard time settling for
\nsomething and forgoing things that promise to take us further.<\/p>\n
\nown a better version of something or more of something?<\/p>\n
\ndry seasons and perhaps a pair of sandals or smart shoes for special occasions. For some
\nreason, however, you want to have more. Same thing with furniture. We have had a sofa for
\nten years and there\u2019s nothing wrong with it. But we have grown bored of it and we are more
\nthan happy to buy a new model. We love home remodels, too. Ask your grandparents, if they
\nare still alive: you are likely to discover that remodeling was hardly on anyone\u2019s mind. Once a
\nthing had been bought or built, it went off their to-do-list. Done. Enough.<\/p>\n
\nunderneath: we have learnt that it is really important to continue to improve ourselves and our
\nsurroundings. We have become insatiable both with regards to material things and to what we
\nconsider \u2018intellectual gains\u2019. If we do not treat ourselves to new experiences or introduce
\nchanges to the old ways of doing things, we hear a voice telling us \u201cyou\u2019re not making
\nprogress in life.\u201d The problem is that the progress in question entails miscellaneous things we
\nneed to pay for, among them loads of paper (new laws or instructions), new equipment, plane
\nrides, books or furnishings, not to mention new buildings or massive remodels. It is really
\nhard to say \u201cenough.\u201d A well-rounded life or an innovative society like this are inevitably
\nconsumerist.<\/p>\n
\nmight be revealing. Who would have thought that our modern strife for self- realization,
\nconsidered a privilege, and the busyness that we all boast about so much could actually
\ndirectly contribute to our environmental challenges?<\/p>\n
\na sorry mode of existence. We have inherited the Earth and we can enjoy its beauty mindfully
\nand pass it on to our descendants with care. In order to do so, we have to turn to some version
\nof voluntary simplicity. Putting a cap on our desire to live a fast life and have it all in the
\nmaterialistic sense, investing more time in mindful work and sustaining relationships are all<\/p>\n