simple beginnings

I suppose it could have started anywhere, but for me it started at the quicktrip down the road. Standing there in the wind, watching resources drain from my wallet into my car, I had an epiphany. "This," I muttered out loud, "is so unsustainable."

Well, it was maybe not the most ground-breaking, earth-shattering, life-changing thought that's ever occurred to someone, but it was important to me. I felt tricked, cheated, ripped off, fleeced, bamboozled and a little offended. Most notably, I had the feeling I was being coerced into this cycle of gas, drive, repeat, and there were no other options available.

As a girl who values her independence, this reliance on fossil fuels had run its course. It isn't about all of the melting polar ice caps, rising sea levels, endangered animal species save-the-world stuff, although that's a benefit. Neither is it some kind of consumer protest, letting my money talk type of thing, even though I'm sure in some way my money will. It's the idea that so many of my habits are just rote practice, culture-dictated and never challenged, and I want to know that if there's a way to do something, it's the best way. Otherwise, why bother?

How can I define "best?" Well, there's no way to really say for sure, but I'd like to hope that simple is best. To live simply is to find ways to meet my needs while refusing to oppress any other person, consuming the least amount of resources possible and doing it in a way that promotes peace, beauty and love. That's why yesterday I came up with the simple challenge.

Since it's a challenge, it needs parameters. I'll participate from June 1 to September 30, and evaluate my continued participation after that. I'll attempt to examine the habits in my life including transportation, nutrition, housekeeping, dressing, etc., and adjust them to fall under my definition of "simple." My participation will need accountability, so I'll write about the challenge here, hopefully sharing the ideas I uncover that might be useful to someone else.

So, since gas prices touched off this whole process, I'm starting with transportation first. I'm a little nervous but mostly hopeful.