I learned about this website called Conscious Consuming from Mothering magazine. It is sponsoring something called Downshifting Week July 7-13. According to Conscious Consuming, "To downshift means to eliminate unnecessary expenditures and cultivate a simpler lifestyle (and leave a lighter environmental footprint) to free up time to do more of what you want."
I think becoming a stay-at-home-mom was in some way my attempt to downshift my life. Making less money forces you to downshift. I have quickly realized that I don't need most of the stuff I thought I needed when we had more income. And, our life is simpler with less money, which is good because keeping things simple has to be good for Jonah. The simple act of walking him to the playground and pushing him on the swings brings smiles and happiness to all of us.
In other ways, having a baby has "upshifted" things. I'm busier and do more "work" than I ever did at any job. I remember counting how many hours I worked at one of my jobs during a particularly busy, stressful week. I clocked more than 60 hours that week and couldn't believe my job required that much of my time and energy. Sixty hours! Now, I know, that's nothing! On the other hand, even though I am more tired than ever, I feel more alive now than I ever did working at one of my super, crazy, busy jobs.
The press release on Downshifting Week was a good read: www.consciousconsuming.org/events/NationalDownshiftingWeekrelease.pdf. It encourages people to look at the silver lining in the bad news about how hard it is to get by in today's economy. "A positive approach to living with less helps you re-think ways to enjoy time with your loved ones without reaching for your wallet; changes to your spending habits should happen because you want them to."
I applaud anyone's effort to create a more positive environment, even if it is simply to change one's mindset. Or, really, just to TRY to change your mindset. The effort itself is enough. It's something I work on every day. It's not easy, but I have the most motivating thing in the world to keep trying to make do with less and to have a positive attitude about it: Jonah. ~ Nicole
2 comments:
This is great, Nic. Another resource I have found really useful is
http://www.betterworldshopper.org/
This guide gives various companies a grade based on their performance on a ton of differenct indexes.
Another cool thing is
http://100milediet.org/
Yumy, fresh local food is best tasting anyway.
Nice Nicole.
Simple. It's not as easy as everyone thinks - but it sure is worth the effort.
Isn't it wonderful?
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