Consumer

I hate the term "consumer" when it comes to describing people. They don't mean it to be a negative thing when they talk about it on the radio, but it is. As in: "we need to protect consumers"; "Consumer confidence is down," etc. But if you take it out and look at it--that is what we are. We aren't part of a cycle, or contributing anything back, we're just CONSUMING. It is a very ugly thing when you look at it closely. We're consuming insane amounts of resources. We all know it's not sustainable. And we don't mean "not sustainable" like in the obscure, long, long time from now--like 1000 years from now. We are talking 100 years. 50 years. We can't keep consuming at this rate, or our children are going to pay the price in their own lifetimes. Yet we kind of choose to ignore this and go about our daily lives.

What we forget is that simple living--choosing to live a very simple life--is actually more fulfilling, more rewarding, and happier, than a life filled with the trappings of technology, commuting, lots of bills, credit, stress, etc. We are drawn into that lifestyle against our better judgement. We make money to spend on stuff. The accumulation of stuff doesn't make us happy. Instead, we find ourselves buying more just to replenish the momentary happiness that consuming brings us. We forget this when we hop on the treadmill of modern life and continue to make money to buy stuff.

What if we get off the treadmill, or never get on it? What happens?

That is what our family intends to find out. What if we made an environmental pact? What if we decided to minimize our impact way beyond what we have done in the past? What if we pushed ourselves to see HOW minimally we could consume? What if we found out that we enjoyed it, and did more and more?

That is what this blog is about. Our journey into simplicity for the sake of our earth. It scares me to think about the earth my own children will inherit. With their births, it has become all too real to us what environmental tragedy might mean for future generations. At the same time, we found ourselves falling into the trappings of "convenience" because....well, we have kids. I mean, we have kids, so we need to do X (drive more, use this product, buy this thing, etc). Shouldn't it be the other way around? Because we have kids, we should strive NOT to consume. To go out of our way to simplify our lives, minimize our impact. To show them that having stuff is not the end-all-be-all, but is rather usually the root of much suffering.

We often think we can just recycle things, but what we forget is that its: Reduce, reuse, recycle, in that order. First we need to consume less. Then we need to reuse or repair things. THEN recycle. Recycling should be our last goal.

What are we capable of? We will find out.