Some people have a restorative lifestyle without thinking about it. They hardly waste anything, they have a low carbon footprint, and they live in tune with nature. But the people who live simply now may also want the western lifestyle that includes greater wealth, safety and abundance.
Most of us in the Western world do not even consider what it would mean to live a restorative lifestyle.
In America, we have so much abundance of food, material comforts, and options on how we live that we can be overwhelmed by our good fortune.
We have access to transportation and shelter that not only consume energy, but also release gases that change our global climate. While none of us individually are big emitters, we feed into the power plants that are creating greenhouse gases changing our atmosphere and our climate.
For those of us who want to be restorative, it’s not always easy. We don’t always know what to change. Unfortunately many people have no inclination in changing their destructive ways. A large percentage of Americans do not believe in climate change, or want to work on it in any substantive way.
For those of us who want to promote a healthier, cleaner world, we have to ask ourselves what will make more people want to adopt a restorative lifestyle?
Shame doesn’t seem to be working fast enough. Maybe we need a different approach.
To be successful in changing hearts and minds about living more restoratively, we need to show that restorative lifestyles increase our well-being, health and connection to community.
Restorative lifestyles must also maintain include access to abundance, transportation, individuality, freedom, safety, and beauty.
Restorative lifestyles must increase the standard of living of many places in the world, while we also improve our own in different non-wasteful ways.
The Biden presidency shows promise towards working on the systemic issues that could slow down climate change and begin to heal our earth. But that’s not enough for what our grandchildren need us to do.
Somehow, we have to move beyond politics, particularly in America, so that more people want to engage in a restorative lifestyle.
Our big goal this year at the Mindful Earthkeeper is to listen, discover, and actually take part in restorative projects.
We hope you will enjoy our focus on restorative lifestyles in 2021.
Mindful Earthkeeper 