Greenitforward’s Weblog

One of the hardest things (I find) is that taking ecological action leads to fear of commitment to further ecological action. Mentally, ecologically, we start to get too far ahead. That’s like going on a date with someone and then she says “I can’t wait to have kids.” Funny how much you can’t wait for that date to be over then. Truth is, the idea isn’t necessarily you turn off, it’s the knowing that date number two leads eventually to meeting the parents… buying a house… then re-mortgaging it to pay for your kids’ college tuition… when all you wanted to do was have dinner and a few drinks.

I start to fear if I carry my plastic drink bottle home to recycle instead of dropping in the garbage on the street that eventually I’ll start using incense instead of deodorant. I’ve seen those environmentalists. You get all enthusiastic and then become insane.

Or worse yet, there’s The Guilt. Because acknowledging once that something could be done better means acknowledging more things that could be done better. Since pretty much everything could be better, the whole change is big and impossible. Also, being the person who always remembers to bring a mug instead of getting coffee in a to-go cup means drawing comments when you forget your mug that day. Can’t I just be imperfect some days? Please?

Everyone appreciates a good deed but at the same time, everyone sees you as That Person (reference above mention insanity). Too much of someone else doing something good just makes me feel like I’m not doing enough. It’s why I will try to make my their harder, just to even things up, Harrison Bergeron-style. Raise your hand if you’ve remind your environmentalist friends how much they aren’t doing. My favorite go-to move was to point out that the whole conundrum is Big and Impossible.

I said “was”; I should say “sometimes is”. I used to point out Big and Impossible all the time, but now only sometimes. I changed- just a little. I got tired of seeing the weight of, and the changing of, the world on the shoulders of others. I was tired of the possibility that weight would shift to my shoulders. So I stopped looking at the world this way.

Instead of trying to tackle the whole problem, I take on bits at a time. And when I can’t or don’t – that isn’t the end of the world, or the end of my good works. I just start over. A friend taught me a simple rule for counting breaths when meditating. Count to one and start over. Otherwise you might lose count and get frustrated. So don’t count. Just do.

I can’t do everything. I can do some things. I will do them imperfectly and irregularly, but I will keep doing things. When the world starts to overwhelm you too, take a deep breath, take one step out on that high and slender edge and don’t look down. We’re not saving the world all at once. We’re just going to walk to the recycle bin.

-chel