Road Trip Talks

Our vacation was so fun but I have to say, one of the best parts was all the discussion going on during the 12 hour car ride there and back. We listened to some audio books and I did some snoozing but we also did a lot of talking.

We talked a lot about our lives. How they used to be, how they are, lessons we are learning and how we want things to look in the future. 

One of the biggest topics was green living. We would never claim to be the world's greenest family but we do put forth a lot of effort. According to The Lorax:

We kind of live by this motto. But why?  Because we want the Earth to still have resources available for our grandchildren and their grandchildren? Because it's the "right" thing to do?  Because we care for all living things and believe that everything deserves a healthy and thriving environment in which to thrive?  Because it makes us feel good?

There are a lot of reasons but do our efforts really make a difference?  Should we look down upon the girl who opens her car door at the gas station to set out her fast food cup on the ground, even though she is less than 5 feet away from a garbage can (true story)?  Or the man in front of us on the interstate in the HUGE, gas guzzling truck who throws out cigarette butt after cigarette butt? It is easy to begin to look down upon those who do not share your views because 1) you feel like what they are doing is wrong and 2) it kind of feels like they are single handedly undoing any efforts you put forth. How can we protect our planet for future generations when we are constantly playing a game of tug 'o war with those who don't seem to care?

This is when our conversation took an interesting turn. The realization hit me that we can't kill our planet... The only thing that can do that is when our sun decides to explode. Humans are most definitely changing the planet, and are using up all of its available resources, but we are not powerful enough to kill it. We will kill our species off before that happens and you know what?  This amazing planet of ours, as long as it still has a sun, will rebuild itself, Wall-e style, in preparation for the next lucky set of species' that will inhabit it. 

So where does that leave us and our friend The Lorax?  Humans seem to have a natural inclination for self distruction. Do we just stop fighting the uphill battle, join in on "biggerism" and let our grandchildren's grandchildren suffer our consequences?  Or do we totally unplug, move into a cabin off the grid and completely rebel against what our society has become?  Obviously those are the extremes and the answer that we came to was our answer for most things: People just need to do what feels right. For us, that is cloth diapering , recycling, turning off lights when we aren't using them, reusable grocery bags, etc. Are we really making a difference when we do all of these things?  Money savings aside, is saving room in landfills by cloth diapering really better for the Earth even though we use up extra water to keep them clean?  The bottom line is that we care and we do what we *think* will help and that is all we can do. 

Balance is the key to the survival of anything. Going to an extreme can work well, short term, but eventually something has to happen to center things again. We are slowly learning that this is the way things should be across all areas of our lives. 

Ha, and that was just one of our deep road trip conversations. You really should have been there. Good times. 

Have you had any epiphanies lately? Do tell!

~Sarah

Flashback!  Here's what we were up to one year ago today: Playing Hookey

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