Step back, slow down and make sustainable changes in your life!

Published on April 21 , 2020

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Amrita Neelakantan

For this 50th Earth Day, I want you all to take back the gift of time in your life – an opportunity that is unmissable as we sit at home because of a dangerous pandemic. 

So how does this help anything?

Well, the warming earth is here and will hit those more vulnerable than us many times harder. Worst of all, it seems wholly bigger than actions in individual lives.

Or so it seems… but see global climate change is directly and clearly due to the ‘rate of consumption’ which in turn is linked to our unsustainable pace of life. 

We need to SLOW down. Stop our consumption. Anyway, a lot of it bores me and I think many times it may bore you too, it is mindless, unthinking, automatic. We need to unplug the noise of hectic modern living to even gain a different perspective, be able to redirect our attention. 

Here’s the thing I’m going to do for the Earth and for me – a GIFT two ways. I wish you would join me, as many days as we can this year and the next 50.

A Device-Free Hour With A Treat And A Task:

I give myself an hour every morning as a treat of just being alive + the goal to do one thing that day that would be a ‘consumption to action’ swap.

Start small and be gentle with yourself – this is a marathon not a sprint.

I Have / You can:

  1. Paint (also check out more on why hobbies are good for you)
  2. Read – bring your bookworm / comic-fan back into play
  3. Give yourself a lazy luxurious home-spa pedicure
  4. Make jello or caramel custard
  5. Nap
  6. Do some balcony birding
  7. Decide to change old bulbs to LEDs
  8. Figure out how solar energy might be operational for your house
  9. Plant and commit to taking care of a tree

The choices are endless and the planet so wondrous that it is remarkable how we feel like the internet and shopping/spending money are our only choices. Remember yourself as a child and do more of what makes that kid happy.

Buy Less. Do More. De-link Money from Fun.

(Amrita has so far done two pop-ups with Black Orchid in Brooklyn and in Bengaluru, she is a resource at the sustainable shopping pop-up Shuffling Suitcases, teaches sustainability studies at NIFT Delhi and continues to do environmental research after her doctorate as the coordinator of the Network for Conserving Central India. Check out https://www.blackorchid.co.in/ and @blackorchid.india (Instagram + Facebook)

(On 50 years of Earth Day - join us in making India's largest climate action manifesto. #FiftyForFifty. Connect with us and tell what step are you taking for climate action?)

4 Categories

Forest & Biodiversity
Plastic & Waste
Plastic Pollution
Waste & Recycling

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