Step Number 1 in Changing America

The options open to us are all the technologies and methods developed in the past, as well as the modern solutions.  People often complain that they simply can't cut their resource use because they can't afford the luxury-- often that luxury is time.

I wasn't aware that some people were magically born with less than 24 hours in their day.  The truth is, if your life is filled with gadgets and a long commute instead of family, friends and healthy living, you're not only choosing to live that way, but you're also prioritizing family and friends and health lower than commuting, consumption and sedentary lifestyle (note: I was going to say "lower than money, but then I remembered that money can only buy us stuff to fill our lives-- something which can easily be done for free).

Let me try to explain this better-- in fact, I'll us my mom's words(in honor of mother's day??); whenever I'm feeling like I have no control over my life, she always tells me:

You're born, then you die, everything in the middle is just details.

This statement is quickly becoming one of the most profound and useful bits of "mommy-wisdom" I've ever heard.  It can mean different things in different situations.  In this article it means that no matter how you live your life, if you were to change your lifestyle to help those around you as well as yourself, you'll still have the rest of your life to change back to a resource-hogging schmuck.  Ever seen somebody resist change and laughed at them?  How about seeing somebody getting frustrated by "life" (i.e., newlyweds, teenagers, new parents, etc.)?  Isn't it resistance to becoming more sustainable just instance of stupid resistance to what will need to be done? 

Step no. 1 in changing America

Why change?  That seems to be the question implied in people's resistance to cutting back on things and activities that-- when done in excess-- don't enhance your life, and take a lot of resources.  So why modify our habits?  "It's hards", one woman said to me, "too hard to live sustainably for me".  I can sympathize with their plight; I traveled 230 miles to work at an oil refinery for a couple weeks, then I'll return to my regular job-- 17 miles away from where I live.  Not exactly the carfree lifestyle that I preach, is it?

Well, the fact is that it's a long process to change old habits and in order to do it, you first have to be willing to change.  Scratch that-- you have to be driven to change.  You have to hunger for it and find such value that you can't pass up the opportunity to live sustainably.

So what is step number 1 for changing America's profile?  We have got to shuffle off this coil of lies that we are consistently sold; we are told that we will be happy if we just "buy this" and "covet that".  We are a society that is not just materialistic, but we are often happy to pick only from the options told to us.  Very often we get caught up in picking our options that we lose track of moments that could truly make us happy, but now annoy us: a child blowing a tuft of dandelion seeds goes from a picturesque moment, capturing the beauty and simplicity of childhood-- to an abominable act, set out to destroy perfectly homogeneous laws around America; the American middle class's desire to save their money becomes a severe blow to some market sector, resulting in tens of thousands of layoffs instead of the proactive solution to their shrinking class and a solution to "the rich get richer" idea.

Step 1 in changing America is changing our Values.  We need a middle-class culture that ceases to undervalue creativity.  We have got to encourage our youths to try anything new and charge ahead into the unknown.  Forget waste-- that is no longer the indicator of affluence, the currency of the future will be resourcefulness.