You don’t have to be a superhero, an influential person, or belong to a special community to change the world.
First of all, in order to restore natural balance and social equality, it is necessary to reconsider our own priorities, values, habits, and the culture of consumption.
Our reality is the result of millions of decisions that each individual makes throughout his or her life. Every action we take has a consequence on our future.
That is why I urge you to take seven simple steps that can change our society, the environment, and even change the course of history.
1. Take care of the future now
Take a bit of responsibility. Be conscious, let people and new experiences into your life. I’m sure we all have enough wisdom to make our own conscious decisions. Don’t mind appealing wrappers, prices, other people’s words, and advertising. Remember, nothing comes without a price.
Before buying new things, it would be great to think about how long they will last, what emotions, energy and experience they will bring, and where they will be after use. By taking care of recycling in advance, we will literally save this planet like real superheroes.
At the moment, every living organism contains microplastic particles. However, even knowing this information we continue producing plastic.
Cheap disposable products have no right to exist. After being used, they end up in the environment, where they get into nature and poison our water and food. Companies that create such things should not receive funding to prosper! Only by giving up harmful goods and services consciously, we (consumers) can stop this madness!
Eventually, the decisions we make right now will become part of our reality in 5 years. It has always been and always will be like this.
2. Let go of the past for the sake of the present
Look around. Our world produces too much noise, speed and emotions. Our cities, streets, and homes are more like warehouses and landfills than temples and places to refill our energy and relax.
We can clean, polish, and organize our space as much as we want, but without changing our attitudes to consumerism, we will never move even for a step in restoring simplicity, lightness and balance.
There is a solution. Accumulating new items and experience, we should take care of a suitable place for the old ones. How can we do this?
Share. There are many people who just need our help. At the same time, billions of wonderful things cover with dust, lying idle on our shelves, in closets, pantries and warehouses. These things deteriorate over time, without any benefit and without fulfilling the purpose of their existence. They do not make people’s lives easier and happier.
It can be anything: small clothes, unused shoes, old equipment, read books, unused stationery, extra pillow and blanket, table lamp, children’s clothes and toys, furniture, phone, computer, synthesizer, guitar, video camera, microphone, dishes, washing machine, vacuum cleaner, dishwasher, refrigerator, plumbing, materials, spare parts, tools, food and even transport and real estate.
Things we consider junk can be valuable to the people around us. Children and the elderly are the most vulnerable and deprived of choices and opportunities. They have no opportunities to get all the things needed for living a full life, fulfilling their goals and using creative potential.
If you are not ready to give away personal belongings forever – borrow them with a promise to return, or to pass them on after use (reading, resizing, doing work, better variant, etc.).
Be active. Think for yourself, ask friends, take pictures and suggest things on social networks, create ads, visit a school or a charity organization, or send extra things to the Freeproject.
Everything that is broken and used can be handed over for repair, recycling, or disposal.
You will be amazed at how many things take up extra space in your home. How easy it is to live without these unnecessary things and thoughts. How many needs can be solved without the use of money!
We produce too many products. If we distributed already made things among all people, this would be enough to meet the needs of mankind for decades. This is despite the fact that most products are deliberately made of low quality and cheap, so they break down quickly and we have to buy new ones.
Companies make huge batches of goods and instead of caring about quality and the environment. They invest OUR money in decoration and advertising. If they cannot sell the products – the goods just lie on the shelves and warehouses, until they are thrown away, polluting our nature.
If people learned to wait, and local entrepreneurs made new things only when consumers ordered them – the problem of consumption simply would not exist!
3. Live your life here and now
Our life is happening right now, in a moment that exists only for a flash. The mark we leave by our actions, however, will exist for thousands of years.
When I finally understood this simple truth, my way of thinking changed forever. All the actions I did thoughtlessly suddenly became meaningful.
Imagine, in order to get to your home, most things travel halfway around the planet. Is it possible without the use of tons of discarded plastic and cardboard packaging, cutting and recycling of trees, emissions from burnt fuel (airplanes, ships, cars), and as a result – poisoning of water and soil; construction of roads (which occupy space where plants could grow); slave labor (because continuous production is impossible without neglecting someone’s interests); advertising, which is created to sell goods and accelerate “growth”; use cheap and toxic substances to offset all these costs?
The simple soap we wash our hands with, along with all the poison in it, gets into the water and poisons the soil where the plants we eat will grow. All the garbage that we thoughtlessly produce and take out to the landfill will not disappear. Even a biodegradable plastic bag will eventually become microplastic and then get into our stomachs with water and food.
There is no mythical way to overcome these problems other than to stop creating them!
We are constantly developing transport, logistics and production. We are building new roads and cars, airports and planes, ports and ships.
Companies must always grow and accumulate capital – this is the basis of the modern economy. But who said that humanity should move in this way? Not me!
There are some alternatives.
By buying, distributing and using things locally, we stop maintaining this circle. Stop funding corporations and their owners!
By buying things from small businesses, we share money with the people around us, enrich the local community, save energy and resources, and avoid accumulating capital in the hands of billionaires.
By living this life here and now, we take responsibility for the consequences that are the results of our existence.
4. Give a positive boost
Always choose better! Between good and evil – choose good, between conflict and compromise – choose compromise, between request and manipulation – choose request.
The actions we project on others affect ourselves.
By smiling at other people, we give a part of our energy. This energy will give them the strength to be a little kinder to others. And the positive energy we give will be returned to us by others.
It is easy to be rude to a stranger, especially if his or her behavior does not meet our expectations. However, the momentum we give extends further.
If we want the world to be kinder, cleaner, more tolerant or inclusive, we need to give it a proper impetus.
The next time someone shares a negativity with you, think about whether you want this energy to spread further.
If not, stop this circle here and now!
5. Be not afraid of who you are
You are exciting! You are beautiful, strong, valuable, and unique. You are alive, real and extremely important. The trace you leave in history will always exist. No one should assure you of anything else.
From childhood, we are constantly told what we need and who to be. All our lives we are constantly evaluated and sorted, confronted and compared, labeled, divided into nationalities, classes, age groups and forced to believe in competition, success, and fame.
Striving for perfection is great, but to believe that wealth and influence are the equivalents of happiness is very far from reality. We are different and strive for different things. If you like to bake bread, play the guitar, write electronic music and sew toys from old things – it’s absolutely normal.
The ability to create and live the life we want is the meaning of our existence.
We all love diversity. Tastes, smells, colors, touches, sounds. Isn’t it wonderful when life is full of feelings? However for some reason, when it comes to people, we try to use labels (communist, believer, hard worker, lazy, businessman, black, Chinese, capitalist, rich, stupid).
You should understand one thing – the world is constantly changing, and throughout our lives, each of us tries on hundreds of different roles.
You should not limit your world by yourself. Believe, there are so many restrictions around us.
You can do anything, combine the incompatible and create the unreal.
No matter what other people think, they have not gone the same way that fell to your lot.
Allow yourself to be who you always have been, and finally accept others as they are.
6. Find integrity
Our world is as it is. It has existed for an unknown number of years and its functioning does not depend on humans.
Yes, our actions affect other living beings, and even change the ecology and climate of our planet. But on the scale of nature, our life is only a moment in the history of the universe.
Our planet will easily survive the cessation of our existence, but people will not be able to live without this planet. It has its own laws and processes, from which its rules and restrictions follow. However, the Earth (our ancestors chose this name) has always been and will be our only home.
We seldom think about the reality in real terms.
Earth, water, the Sun – we take all these things for granted. The soil that gives us food is slowly becoming synonymous with dirt. Water, the basis of all living things, is associated with something dangerous that must be constantly filtered and cleaned of bacteria.
In a contrived fear, we began to sterilize and destroy all living things. Pasteurize, preserve, fry, process and hermetically package all existing water and food. To avoid some mythical diseases, we destroy all the nutrients, vitamins, minerals – all the value that has always been in excess, in nature-created, especially for humans, plant foods.
We, humans, the ancestors of researchers, thinkers, creators, and adventurers, have lost our health and intelligence in the pursuit of safety. Unconsciously buying poisoned food filled with toxic preservatives, harmful dyes, and flavor enhancers, we have become addicted to our own eating habits.
Instead of living as nature intended (of which we are a part), we destroy the world in which we live. We have created death camps for animals, chemical and genetic weapons for insects and plants, and a system of financial slavery for people like us.
There is no place for life in the houses and cities we have built. Only empty, soulless, boulders, walls, fences, roads and streets filled with noise, garbage and harmful emissions.
In modern world, it is extremely difficult to feel harmony and peace. Today we cannot just sit with our eyes closed, contemplate the sky and the stars, or touch plants and animals.
A simple walk is a mixture of danger and trial. After all, every piece of land is a private territory for huge soulless blocks of metal, which continuously poison the air, move at a deadly speed for any creature and occupy all possible and impossible space.
Our children are deprived of a safe space for games, because instead of playgrounds, we build parking lots. All we leave for future generations are tiny sidewalks and artificial parks.
7. Appreciate.
Now when we are a little closer to reality, let’s appreciate life as it is. Let’s protect the nature that we inherited “just like that”. Preserve opportunities that we may not have. Love and respect people, animals, plants, and all the things that exist around us, creating the world in which we live.
Following these steps is not easy, but the changes we can make, with our willpower, will literally create a different future. A future we can truly be proud of, love and appreciate.
Now share this post with the three people you love. Let’s make this world a little more conscious, better, and happier place to live.
