One Planet Lifestyle: The Why
I wish I could say that being an Environmentalist is something I identified with early on in life, but unfortunately I was closer to the opposite end of the eco-friendly spectrum. In my 20’s I was living the convenience dream, surfing the disposable tidal wave. Whilst I can’t actually surf and I wasn’t deliberately trashing the planet, I was, relatively speaking, an Environmental Villain.
For a long (embarrassingly long) time I would scroll through articles and photos on my news feed, highlighting the destruction of our planet and think ‘that’s sad’, but I honestly didn’t think that I could do anything about it, or worse that my own actions were having such an adverse effect. Ignorance at its best. I’m not proud of it, but it really didn’t occur to me to challenge too many of the concepts and practices that society and/or the government permit. Also, being born and raised in New Zealand, a lot of negative impacts were just not visible or even on my naive radar at that time.
By recycling and throwing my rubbish in the bin, I considered myself a good environmental citizen of planet Earth. I was a happy and contented little sheep, thinking that if companies sell products and everyone else is doing it, it’s fine to use and dispose of them. It’s cringeworthy reflecting of some of the former thoughts that tumbled through my head, but the first step to recovery is admitting you’re an idiot.
Add a few years and some education on the topic, and it became harder and harder to accept that living the way I was was OK. At some point, clicking a sad face on a photo of yet another sea creature maimed by plastic was not enough. Sharing an article about Global Warming wasn’t solving the problem. Sure, it was and is bringing awareness to serious and real issues, but to me, it’s not providing practical call-to-actions.
Around the same time, I stumbled across two movements that became pivotal in my environmental awakening; Minimalism and Zero Waste Living. Whilst these concepts are not always linked, they have strong synergies. At the heart of both Minimalism and Zero Waste is a philosophy of living simply and intentionally.
Regardless of whether I have children or not, I don’t want my legacy for future generations to be that I was part of and actively contributed to the pillage and destruction of our planet. There are so many great solutions for people to live harmoniously with Mother Nature, it’s just a matter of showcasing them in a straight forward and easy-to-digest fashion.
Born from this is Brief Leaf; A channel for me to share useful and effective ideas for living simply and intentionally; a One Planet Lifestyle. It’s my way of doing something. I certainly haven’t got it ‘all figured out’, but if I can inspire just one person to question some of their choices and the impacts they have on the world, this mission will be a success.
