I don’t know about you, but I can’t believe it! Soon we’ll be getting around to New Year’s resolutions again. I have to confess, I seldom make any significant promises to myself, and if I do, I don’t share them with others. Why set yourself up for failure?
That being said, I do advocate for constant self-assessment and striving to improve oneself. This is especially true, I believe, when it comes to living sustainably — being green.
In all that we do around Stillwaters, we encourage and support people in their attempts to live more sustainably. In fact, that is the essence of our mission statement. But I often hear from people who are A) balking at the sacrifice that is required, or B) feeling terribly guilty that they have not lived up to the greenest of expectations because they did something less than perfectly sustainable. So I can only imagine what agony New Year’s resolutions would bring to these folks when it comes to pledging to be more Earth-friendly in the new year. Let me ease the pain a little.
The best advice I ever heard was to liken “greening” your life to improving your exercise habits. You can’t change into a super-athlete overnight. If you have been a couch potato, you don’t start out by running 10 miles a day or biking 15 miles to work. You have to take it more slowly.
The same is true for getting greener — look at what you are doing now and, first of all, pat yourself on the back for that. Then set out to find a few things you can do to extend what you are doing now.
For example, if you use recycled toilet paper and tissue at home, can you get your office to do the same? If you’ve got your recycling and composting habits in place, can you start “upcycling” by re-using items in various ways? Or start using that compost to more actively grow your vegetable garden?
When making resolutions, we tend to look at the bad habits we don’t like about ourselves, or feel guilty about, and then say we’re going to ban that habit all together? Smoking, eating chocolate, overeating in general, watching too much TV, drinking too much — it’s a long list. We say our New Year’s resolution is to ban that activity all together. The curious thing is that a taboo activity becomes incredibly enticing.
If we focus on what we want to do instead, that shift in attitude can make a huge difference in our success. If we don’t try to ban processed foods from our diet entirely, for instance, but focus on looking for fresher, healthier foods first, we can feel a lot more successful every time a fresh salad or homemade soup crosses our palate.
We might want to decrease our consumption of new goods, so we go for the “marathon” and decide that we will not buy anything new for the entire year. Some people have done that and it’s a lot of work to figure it out, but very worthwhile. Most of us, however, would be much more successful at deciding that before throwing anything out (or donating it to Goodwill), and replacing it with a new item, we will study it for at least a week to see if it can be fixed, or assess whether it could be used in another way, or decide if we could live without it altogether.
Make a resolution to think about it. Being green is a puzzle that can keep your mind engaged and challenged. Hey, that’s a good resolution for the New Year — just “green” your brain!
— Naomi Maasberg is director of Stillwaters Environmental Learning Center. Email naomi@stillwatersenvironmentalcenter.org.
