Earth Hour

Join the march. Join the chorus. Do it for and hour. Do it for a day. Do for the rest of the week or month. Heck, do it for life. Do it for yourself. Do it for your friends. Do it for me. Just do it. This March 29th is global lights out. At 8pm local time(s) in at least 29 cities globally, people will be participating in a lights out protest. They will be turning out the lights, turning of computers, cell phones, ovens, other electricity consuming devices. For one hour we are challenged to make greener choices and to try to avoid wastefulness.

But don’t get swept up in the rhetoric.

Don’t just mark the cursory occasion a novelty, think no lights for an hour... but to take to heart the message. We don't stand against waste...we work with every choice we make to reduce it, recycles it, reuse it and replace it with a new way of thinking. A new way of living and interacting with the world. We can't really protest environmental abuse with a 60 minute commitment, but its somewhere to start.

In myself I am slowly kindling the belief that every hour is Earth's hour. I am super excited for the big Earth hour celebrations this week. Granted, I'm sure nothing is happening here in Korea; in my own little world there will be. A class in the dark. A day without computers, ovens and other nonessential. A challenge to myself and to those around me.

I don't want to spend sixty minutes inconvenienced by darkness, but 60 minutes thinking about a new way of working. A new way of thinking about how I will and should and could interact with this earth to help keep it beautiful. To help make it a place of continuous health and positive growth. I want to challenge myself to make the choice...take the stairs...go for a walk...buy local...buy organic...put my money where my mouth is, and put my actions ahead of my words.

So how has my adventure been? For the past few weeks I have been working on a buy nothing scheme. My aim to buy nothing I don't need. It seemed amazingly difficult, and there are some things that get me often (chocolate for example). But it has been an amazing experiment. Already I've noticed I'm putting out less garbage. I have more recyclables because I'm choosing to buy foods in recyclable packaging, if packaged at all. I now always carry bags with me to the grocery store. I'm choosing to buy less and be sure to use all the food I buy, wasting as little as possible. And the biggest surprise, I don't want things as much. Every day it gets easier to buy nothing.

It was amazing to me at first, how many times a day I would think, oh I'll just get this or that. Or I'd buy a snack on the way home from work or yoga, instead of eating the food I already have in my home. How I would have to tell myself forcefully "no" and would usually argue with myself at length that it was essential enough, or it was silly to deny simple things like chocolate bars, notebooks, pens. But I have enough of these things at home, I would eventually agree.

But the greatest lesson is this ongoing lesson about choices. There is never one choice to make and that's that. It is a continuing process, a thousand choices everyday. So I hope you all have a beautifully peaceful Earth Hour. Send someone your love. And think about the choices you get to make today.

Love you all!