What Is Sustainable Living?
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Many people have a misconception about what sustainable living is. Sustainable living does not mean you have to give up a modern lifestyle and live out in the backwoods! What it does mean is a change in mindset as a consumer, to benefit your own health and that of the planet.
How To Make A Change Towards Sustainable Living
We have all fallen into the trap of consumerism and the age of convenience, the throw-away society. We want instant gratification and solutions to our problems …. Right now! If something breaks, we just throw it away and buy a new one!
It is a selfish mindset whereby we think only of ourselves and having our needs met above all else. Much of this mindset has been encouraged, or even forced upon us by big business. They want us to by their energy, or buy their products and the more of it we buy, the happier they are.
Changing to a sustainable living lifestyle is almost impossible to do overnight! The changes would be too drastic for us to cope with all at once and we will revert back to our old ways.
The key in making a change towards a sustainable living lifestyle is to take it in small steps. Make small changes that you can manage and work towards a larger goal. Changing your lifestyle in this way can be a very rewarding and stress relieving undertaking. It could even become a hobby!
Small Steps For Big Change
Radical change is hard to get used to and difficult to sustain – and we are talking about sustainability here after all! But small change, if done by many people can have a big impact on a global scale!
Some of these small changes can include simple things that don’t require much effort. As an example, change your all your light bulbs in your house to energy saving bulbs. These light bulbs last longer than normal light bulbs, and consume less energy. This is good for the environment and good for your pocket, so you can feel a direct benefit from this change.
Two More Easy Changes
Another example of a small change you can make is to recycle. This one requires a little more effort on your part, but once you get into the habit of doing it, it will become easier. Separate out your glass, plastics and organics and if your waste collector does not recycle, drop your bags at a central recycle station in your area.
Try growing your own vegetables. If you do not have the space or the time for this, start on a small scale and grow some herbs indoors that your use on a daily basis. Gardening, even on a small scale can be therapeutic and rewarding!
In future posts, I will cover some changes you can make in detail as you progress in your sustainable living journey! Let your lifestyle heal the planet!
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I am glad mygreenterra took time and developed this promotional post in ourG+.This is immense help with my unawareness of not seeing this lesson in local news.thank you,mike
Thank you for the follow. Great well written post. Personally, I feel I’ve improved in some areas (growing our own vegetables and gardening with mostly native plants) and worsened in other areas like using boxes and boxes of diapers for our 7 month old. Posts like these are great reminders for picking up the slack 🙂
You are welcome. It is a journey for us all, and we do what we can. The main thing is that we never remain satisfied with where we are at, but keep on trying to make a difference!