Friday, March 26, 2010

The Yoga of Sustainability: a simpler, healthier, happier world


I feel that at this point in human history, after all of the hardships overcome by our ancestors to give us an easier, longer life, we have gone too far. I believe this mainly because our chase for convenience has taken us past ease & more liesure time to the point of epidemics of preventable diseases. Not to mention rampant anxiety, depression & multiple, concurrent environmental disasters that will cause unimaginable harm to ourselves, our future generations & all species on earth.

How inconvenient that is for us- isn't that what life is about now- mere convenience? Food's most important attribute now is ease of preparation & ingestion, not taste nor nutrition.

Its grotesque when reflected upon- its more important to us as a nation to shove quick, greasy, vulgar tasting substances down our throat as fast as possible, catch a fat or sugar or salt buzz, & then rush off. Very depraved indeed. Good thing we eat it fast, because if we stopped to taste it we'd be disappointed. I think this is typical of what our society is missing. Jimmy Carter made an amazing speech in I believe 1979, on what's wrong in our country- lack of human connection & peace of mind & no connection to nature at the expense of a capitalist & disposable culture. And now thirty years later this infection has rotted through not just communities, but our whole culture. The quest to own more things as cheaply as possible has overidden all self-control to the point of literal global disaster. Convenience & consumeristic values seem to be more important than avoiding millions of deaths, millions of climate refugees, wars over water & mega natural disasters.

I think better of my fellow humans than that. I'm not waiting for our state to ration water (although some counties in at least AZ & CA are already doing so) before I learn to live hapilly with much less. I have made the choice to live on only my share of the earth's limited resources, because contrary to ridiculous popular belief, there's only so much to go around. I believe its not right to go on wasting water knowing full well that in as little as twenty years there are going to be world-wide shortages of clean drinking water, yes, even in the mighty US. I'm not going to eat a globalized diet based on anything & everything from everywhere all at once, especially when I know that its absurd, & only cheap because the farmers & workers that make it possible are paid scratch and barely survive. Since I've actively made changes to my lifestyle I live abundantly, on a lot less money, with greater health & connection to loved ones, than ever before. This is no coincidence- it seems that the one solution to the one problem fixes all of the leaks. No catch. Eat well, live well, love well & be fulfilled.

It just takes learning, a short adjustment of a month of creating new habits & then you're off & running, and now a vibrant part of the solution & not the problem.

Martin Luther King Jr., Ghandi, Jesus, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and many other brave souls lived their lives openly fighting, at risk of their own safety, what they believed to be unjust. So can we get over our own addiction to a false sense of entitlement to grow up and think about the consequences of our lifestyles for just a minute? If we look deeply into the face of a child, or an endangered animal, how can we tell them "Sorry kid, I know you'll have to live on a few gallons of water a day, but I didn't feel like using a low flow showerhead. It's my right as an American to take 20 minute showers using 5 gallons per minute." there are people in Africa NOW that have to walk 5-8 hours a day for muddy river water. This is their water for drinking, cooking, washing, bathing & feeding animals. Let stop being the spoiled rotten brats of the world. Change comes not from the government down. Its the only virtue of the free market-what we buy & don't buy transforms industry. We change this country by the way we live our individual lives. Let's use our mindfulness to lead a peaceful revolution.

I AM WRITING MY BOOK ON SUSTAINABILITY TO THIS BLOG. IN THIS WAY, CHAPTER BY CHAPTER IT WILL INSPIRE THOSE WILLING TO BE PART OF THE SOLUTION & NO LONGER THE PROBLEM. contrary to popular belief, its is less expensive overall, especially in the longterm to live sustainably. MAY THIS INFORMATION SERVE YOU THE WAY THIS KNOWLEDGE HAS TRANSFORMED THE VERY EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE. PLEASE SHARE IT WITH EVERYONE YOU KNOW. ALL I WANT IN RETURN IS FOR YOU TO TRY YOUR BEST EVERYDAY, DO A LITTLE BETTER EACH DAY, TO BE A SUSTAINER OF LIFE. Namaste

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