Unless your footprint is only what you need to survive, forgoing ego, then ‘you’ are the problem. Sadly, we humans are a glutenous bunch. We either boost our egos with more than what we need or lack respect in what we take.
Understanding ‘respect’ and practicing it will benefit the world. Only we can make the difference. By ‘we’ I mean ‘each’ and every one of us. Collectively, however, that will benefit everyone and everything. The easiest solution and one in which every human can contribute is to buy less, use less, and throw away less. There’s an interesting book recently published which focuses on re-training our buying habits. The results are outstanding. People live in less stress, can retire earlier, all without compromising anything … except maybe a bit of your ego.
“Once a luxury, now a necessity”: so much so that we’ll fly blindly to protect that luxury. Isn’t it odd how well conditioned we’ve become with ‘marketing’ techniques? We go so far as to not question things; only to learn later, with dire consequences, that what we’ve bought in to is unhealthy, cheap, or expensive to fix. The cure here is to buy quality and buy it only if you need it or love it. Dig deep into your consciousness and buy within this framework and you’ll see incredible gains. Buying quality means you’ll less likely fill a land-fill. And even if that item’s time is done in your existence, someone else will likely appreciate the quality of it too. Buying if you need it, is only as effective as your definition of ‘need’. ‘Need’ is sustenance. Nothing less. Buying because you love something means you’re going to embrace it allot longer than if you bought it because it was ‘cool’ or if you bought it on a whim. These three simple little rules will have a cascading effect. The main one will be companies will seek to deliver better quality. Quite, succinctly, we don’t need as much as we think we do. We’re merely a byproduct of what we’ve been taught. And questioning the motive of that teaching will ease your mind on whether you want to retain that knowledge.
I ask anyone I speak with to remain objective, remove hate or bias, and listen to and make every effort to understand their counterparts’ perspective. If you truly do that, you’ll begin to embrace the need to protect your portion of the planet. Which, along side others doing the same, will have a positive residual effect.
I’m a big believer in having a solution for everything one complains about. Of course, in our solution one would also have to justify its cost. I should start by agreeing with Reagan in a non-partisan manner: “Government is not the solution. It’s the problem.” And, to that end, I believe ‘smarter’ laws, with ripple effects are the solution. For example, one of my favorites is: Create a law which requires the company who made the product to recycle it. That would, of course, temporarily increase prices. But it would also increase quality, safety, and efficiency. An entire ‘sustainable’ chain of companies would emerge further driving the sustainability chain. All this benefits, not only us, but our environment as well. One law=several positive side effects.
To further encourage quality, I believe a ‘balance’ in advanced education needs to be struck. This is best demonstrated by an example: If you put 9 engineers in a room and 1 marketing person, what do you get? A darned good product which nobody knows about. On the flip side, if you put 9 marketing people in a room and 1 engineer, what do you get? A crap product which everyone is lying about to sell it. Yes, this is, of course, extreme. But it should send home one very important idea: that we need to have a ‘balance’. Today, I feel, we have an imbalance favoring marketing. Otherwise, we’d have better products to choose from.