When someone's down, it's generally frowned upon to brag and boast of your bursting bank account, your fulfilling job, your storybook relationship, or your perfect body. You don't brag, because you've been there. In life's ups and downs, this particular moment has you on the up; they on the down.
Let's add another up or down the list: Your green lifestyle.
Green living. It's personal. It's cultural. It's situational. It's temperamental. And like the rest of life, sometimes you're struggling to show up; other times you're giving autographs. You're down, then up. Up, then down.
Instead of thinking about green living (and life) as exclusively up or definitely down, I suggest thinking of it more as going up or going down. We are not light switches. We are a beginner paint specialist at a hardware store, with eyes upon that perfect swatch of color: helplessly and hopefully adding a little here and there in search of the perfect green.
Green living isn't a formula. There isn't a cookie cutter mold for it. You can't buy the perfect green. For when applied to your own shade, your own hue shines through-distorting the coat of green. And just when you think you've managed the perfect shade, the sun shines longer or the winter winds blow longer. The world has a say, too. We come in shades and live amidst even more shades. So do our green coats. And like a hand mixed bucket of wall paint, it's arduous and maddening to replicate the perfect shade daily.
So, don't.
Each day, you don't start over at zero. You have each day's experiences and knowledge in green living-a new coat of green, upon layers prior. Each coat leaves you a little greener, or at least richer in color, than before. Some days you feel the weight of our fragile world upon your harmful choices and wonder where your green is hiding. You wonder how much green has carelessly flaked away. Other days, your green thoughts and habits burst through your pores, decorating neighbors and inspiring countries. The flux is not a green excuse. It is green realism. And not until you accept this green realism can you work with it and live your own green lifestyle with gumption and sustainability. For if our eagerness for a better world is beaten beyond repair from the petty disappointment of missed perfections, we, our greens, and our worlds haven't a chance.
We are not ultimately successes or failures in sustainability, entirely up or down; we are green masses of sustainability on a journey upon a spectrum. We are living, pulsating, ever deepening, shade-shifting creatures.
What's your shade of green [today]?
