We are passionate about improving the environment in every way—the air we breathe, the water we drink, the soil our food grows in, and how we power everything. As our awareness grows about our impact on the earth, so grows our passion.
As strongly as we may feel, it is abundantly clear that people’s paths to total greenness vary widely. It’s easy to be critical of someone driving a big SUV while at the same time praising the person one car behind who is driving a hybrid vehicle. After all, SUVs guzzle more fuel than hybrids do.
If we followed them both home, though, we might find the SUV driver living in a small home with an organic garden, dual flush toilets, rain barrels, and a big recycling program. Maybe he has the big SUV to haul all the green things to his house… while the hybrid driver owns a 7,000 square foot house with a huge chemically-fertilized lawn and sports cars in the garage.
Greening gracefully means allowing each person to make their own choices as best as they can without personal judgment. After all, no one is perfectly green. You’d have to live in the country, grow your own food, walk everywhere or ride a horse, sew your own clothes, build your bed from scavenged lumber, build your house without power tools, etc. Even folks who live in very old-fashioned ways depend on some things being transported many hundreds of miles.
So how green I am is just a matter of degree. I do as much as I can as soon as I can, and I gradually make greener choices. Almost everyone has to make choices within their own financial means, and sometimes that means making a less-green choice. That’s really ok.
Furthermore, it’s our belief that living harmoniously is a green choice. Patience is a green choice. Yes, we can aggressively pursue socially greener choices, and we should. At the same time, we must have compassion for ourselves and others when we make the best choice we can.
Everyone wants a healthier life and a healthier planet. Wanting it is the easy part. The path to a healthier life and planet is as different for each of us as the difference among green leaves. Let us allow everyone to move at her own pace and green gracefully.
