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Today's
Meditation:
This
is one of the realities that most of us don't want to
face, and that almost none of us want to do anything
about. After all, it seems so hopeless-- this is a
global problem that has to do with billions of people, so
what can I do as a single individual in one tiny spot on
the planet?
As
with most other things in life, I can only do what I can
do. I can use less gas by driving less and walking
more and having a car that gets better mileage and by not
doing things like letting it idle when I'm not in
it. I can take shorter showers and waste less water
by not letting the faucet run. I can wear my clothes
longer and not replace them so often. I can not
throw away food. I can drink water from one bottle
that I fill up myself instead of buying bottle after
bottle of it. I have to ask myself a very important
question: do my lifestyle decisions contribute to
the draining of the resources, or do they contribute to
the preservation of those resources?
Such
decisions aren't always popular with loved ones or kids or
other people who don't really care about preserving
resources. But popular or not, we still can serve as
role models of someone who does care about the gifts we've
been given on this planet, gifts that we don't want to
squander for no real reason at all. One of the more
important elements of living a full life is that of taking
responsibility for our actions, and to take full
responsibility, we must also be fully aware of them and
their effects.
In
the last five decades, the people of the world have done a
lot of cleaning up of formerly-polluted areas. But
we still use resources at a frightening rate. The
entire world obviously isn't within our realm of
responsibility or influence, but if our great-great- grandchildren were
able to come and talk with us now, what would we tell them
about what we, personally, have done to preserve this
wonderful planet in as good of shape as possible for them?
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