Like everyone, I am a hypocrite. While my vocation is sustainability, I do a lot of things that aren’t congruent with what some would consider a sustainable lifestyle:
- I live +20-miles from work and commute roughly three days a week
- I eat meat and dairy
- I eat out of season produce, some well beyond a 100-mile circumference (avocados!)
- I love national and international travel
- I drink lots of coffee
- I love long, hot showers (and I live in the second most arid state in the USA)
- Lots more
As obsessed with sustainability, self-improvement, and optimization as I can be, I have my flaws. A few of these flaws are bad habits, and most of them are intentional. They come back to my personal goals, priorities, or compromises I make to live the life I want to live in this particular phase.
There is a lot of judgment and assumption when it comes to what makes a sustainable lifestyle. It is effortless to sit back and pick apart what someone else is doing. It is also easy to walk around feeling guilty every day.
I hear it all the time. People apologize to me for printing or having a bottle of water or straws. Sometimes a printed handout makes a meeting a whole lot more productive. Bottled water and straws are a bit of silly luxury, but they are symptoms of system failures. Are these the big wins? Are they worth the guilt?
My philosophy is that a sustainable lifestyle is a journey. A lot depends on your resources, how you spend your time, your goals, your family life, your health, and your life phase. In the arc of your life, priorities, capacity, and access are all dynamic.
Where do our judgements come from?
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