There are so many things in our world to concern us and take up our
attention; so much has gone awry. The US political system is corrupt
and it's economy is based on smoke and mirrors; Europe's monetary system
is in jeopardy; many of Africa's nations seem to be in war and/or
turmoil and their peoples in huge need; our earth's ecosystem is so out
of balance that ice is melting on our polar ice caps, and weather
systems are getting more extreme and intense; our wasteful living is
piling up and polluting everything around it; the poor are getting
poorer and the rich are getting richer. At the core of all of this . . .
. greed. And it is not somebody else, some nameless person living in
some other neighborhood, state or country who is causing this. It is
each and every one of us, trying to make ends meet, struggling to pay
the mortgage, feeding and clothing our families, trying to scratch out a
decent way of life. Sure, the rich are benefiting from much of the
chaos and destruction that is going on, but so are the rest of us.
I
have talked about this before, and feel I need to address it again. We
all need to take responsibility for what is happening to our earth. We
each need to make many changes to our lives if we are going to
survive. I'm not talking about surviving in our own lifetimes. I am
talking about changing the way we walk through our own lives so our
descendents will be able to live in anything other than a bubble. Call
it Conscious Evolution.
As each species confronts a
problem that threatens them, the ones that are not as subject to the
threat are the ones that survive. This is evolution 101. Built in
defense measures such as the spiky fins on a fish, or the odor of the
skunk are what have enabled these species to survive to date. Even now,
each species is evolving ever so slowly to accommodate our aggressive
world. But mankind has been manipulating our world, messing with this
natural order, and disrupting evolution. Through our striving to come
up with a bigger and better mousetrap, and through our insecurities and
needs which compel us to build up storehouses of supplies, we have
managed to strip our world bare, and created such gaping holes in the
world's balance, we now have outpaced the natural evolution and are now
required to figure out our own evolution. We now require everyday
things like sunblock for our skin, since our ozone layer, thanks to
humankind, is now letting in the wrong kinds of sunlight which is having
huge adverse affect on skin. We use so much water, we have to regulate
it's use. We have caused all manner of flora and fauna to die and
even go extinct long before it was meant to, never to be seen again. We
are polluting the air, ground and water, and stripping the earth of the
tools to mend itself, such as the large forests in our world which
clean our air, developing wetlands into condos taking away the most
efficient water filters we could have, and digging horrible sludge up
from the bowels of the earth and using it for fuel - something
definitely wrong there - and who knows what long term effects there will
be from disrupting our earth miles below it's crust??!!
Each
of us is a consumer. We buy lots of stuff!! We buy lots of stuff we
just don't need, made in such a manner as to save money for the
manufacturer who is trying to compete with the market by making the
cheapest product he can make and still earn a profit, and who is not
paying any attention to the actual costs to our earth. We buy these
cheap products to fulfill our needs. Therefore we are supporting the
destruction of our earth by buying these products. We need to start
paying attention, and being responsible and accountable for what we
consume! Rather than buy the inexpensive salad bowl, made a 1/2 world
away, and which will need to be replaced in a year, we need to invest in
our lives and our earth by purchasing quality, locally made items that
will last, which are made with the least impact on our earth. These
items are more expensive, but in the long run, they have the least
cost. We need to change how we consume! We need to make a conscious
effort every day, about what we use and consume. This is difficult,
since it means having to pay attention to things we never really had to
think about because we let the manufacturer make decisions for us. If
we trusted the manufacturer/brand name we didn't have to look any
deeper. They did the policing for us, or so we thought. But now,
everything has changed. We need to take a look at everything, all the
time! We have gotten away with a very relaxed way of consuming for a
very long time. It is time that we started putting in some effort to
support a positive way of consuming, so we can stay healthy along with
our earth. It is time that we evolve in our approach to consumption in
our daily life so that we are not outpaced by the changing earth. Let's
start to consciously evolve and think about what and how we use our earth's resources by consuming less, local, and lime 'green'!!
