By choice, compromise, force, or guilt, we end up tweaking our priorities, habits, customs, hobbies (calling this quartet ‘PhCh’ for the sake of convenience, may be pronounced as phch… ) to either protect our environment or ourselves from it.
Look at what COVID made us see. It slowed us down and made visible that which was hidden by pollution – beauty of nature cringed for all these years just unfolded like never before.
PhCh are subjective but are also influenced by the world around us. Were you expected to do the right thing as a student? Is your spouse more eco-conscious than you?
Are PhCh the same? I follow Diana on Twitter and she often talks about habits and hobbies through her Greener Identity blog.
Is fireworks a hobby, a priority, or a habit? It’s a custom, a tradition, a practice.
Habits, priorities, and hobbies can be personal, whereas customs are societal. A person can decide to give up fireworks and the society as a whole can decide that as well.
You could be giving up travel as your hobby because of associated emissions but could you wait until your travel is powered by renewable energy?
Could having more than one child be a priority in our world right now? Or none for that matter.
Could you get into the habit of carrying reusable containers? It takes 21 days to form a habit so you probably can but do you want to?
Breathe that clean air. The clean air we all share. How do you feel? Probably grossed out thinking you are breathing in what someone else is breathing out. No? Good, because we have been breathing in more than clean air but it’s fine if you and your family wants to breathe in some pollution. It’s a choice, I get it. But is it worth it? That’s for you to decide.
At some point in our lives, we have to assess the impacts of our PhCh. The sacrifices we make may be worth it on a personal or a societal level.
It’s hard, I hear you. You are peer pressured, I hear you. You are afraid you’d be ridiculed for being progressive, I hear that too. Yet, I’d love for you to share your experiences here with me because we are all in this together. There’s strength in numbers!
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Hi Anuja. Great post. I think PhCh can be quite a sensitive topic. We humans love our habits what’s familiar so we don’t have to think about it, also perhaps it gives us some comfort in many ways. Decided by us or society, it takes some questioning and effort to change what’s already there. There are values and beliefs behind everything we do, so I think it is about gaining more clarity on those and see how they can drive change in our lives (and in the end collectively). Perhaps as we gain more clarity and we practice new ways, some of those become the new norm for us and no longer a sacrifice. Everything is a personal journey ;) Thanks for the mention :)
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Thanks, Diana :) Agreed, every journey is different.
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