Marc and I have just finished watching a documentary film set in New York about a family who decide to live a year making as little impact on the environment as they can. They live in New York city and give up electricity, cars, buses, elevators, clothes buying and eat local seasonal food. The documentary follows their family through the highs and lows of their experiment. The film was released in 2009 and I only recently found out about it. Have any of you seen it?
The project was criticised for
- Being a promotional stunt for his book, no impact man, which of course it was.
- Some environmentalists felt that the extreme nature of the experiment was giving them a bad name.
- It goes against the consumerist mindset of the modern world and I think people possibly felt their lifestyle was being judged.
I loved it because
- It made me think about my own choices and the impact they have.
- It made me think about what impact one person can have.
- It challenged belief systems and I think it’s always good to question.
Ethics is something I have been giving a lot of thought to recently. I have always been a firm believer that you need to be the change you want to see in the world. This belief is really useful to me because it stops me getting overwhelmed by the problems of the world and moves me into a state of action. I am aware that with all the efforts that I make there are always so many ways I can improve. I also feel that I don’t have the right to tell others what to do, every action has all sorts of positive and negative consequences. Who am I to tell others what to do? One person can only do so much, efforts spent in one area is time and effort that could be spent elsewhere.
One of things that I love about yoga is that it gradually makes people to be more aware of what they do. With that awareness comes personal choice rather than just flowing with the whim of others. We live in a society where consumerism is everywhere we are bombarded with it. Advertisements tell us if we have blah blah we will be so happy, so sexy, so successful. The gap between the rich and the poor in this world is staggering:
The richest one fifth of the world
- consumes 45 per cent of all fish and meat, whereas the poorest fifth consume 5 per cent
- consume 58 per cent of total energy, the poorest fifth have less than 4 percent
- own 87 per cent of the world’s vehicles, the poorest fifth own less than one percent.
- consume 84 per cent of the world’s paper, the poorest fifth 1.1 per cent
The statistics are from Food and Agriculture Organisation of United Nations, Bread for the World, 2007. I found them in the wonderful book Yoga for a World Out of Balance by Michael Stone. This book is brilliant and I will write about it in more depth once I have finished reading it. Despite these staggering polarisation in terms of how we consume we are all interconnected if I pollute the air you have to breathe it, whether you polluted it or not.
When I read statistics like that it makes me wonder not only if my own actions are enough but if my belief that all I have to do is be the change I want to see is enough. When I first stopped drinking a few years ago, I realised that other people found it really challenging. I don’t mind if other people want to drink at all as long as that’s what they want to do and they’re not harming anyone, who am I to judge? Yet people get uncomfortable because it makes them challenge their own beliefs.
As a vegan, I experience the same thing, many people seem to want to argue with me about my choices. I have never tried to force my beliefs about veganism on anyone. I don’t want to be the annoying person that rants at people while they are eating. I feel that lacks compassion for my fellow man. I don’t have that right and as passionate as I am about it I believe we each have a right to make our own informed choices.
I have been wondering recently if individual change is enough and if it isn’t what should I be doing about it. I think it is not about telling other people how to live their lives or acting superior for all the great things we are doing. In many ways I am very fortunate to live in culture where I have so much choice that I can learn about where my things come from and what impact they have, that I am not starving, I have so may choices, I can read and learn at the touch of a button, I have so may things to be grateful for. There is also so much that I am not doing, I often leave lights on, I don’t always eat organic or seasonal, I sometimes forget my bags for life and there are many things that I have no even considered. There is so much more I can do, I know I am not perfect. I think what I am realising is that it is not about telling people what to do, I don’t have that right, however maybe there is a need to open a discussion to share what we can do and how we manage to make our own impact or tread a little lighter on the planet so that everyone can benefit.
Do you believe in the power that one individual can have to make a change? Has yoga made you more aware of the impact of your actions on others or the world? Do you feel empowered to be the change you want to see in our world?
