Tag: life satisfaction

How I live a sustainable life.

I think I live a fairly sustainable life because of my minimalism, but it isn’t something I set out to do purposely to be a good person. I think a lot of people see living a sustainable life as virtuous. I actually don’t consider it to be associated with virtue. Even if you lived large and wasteful, I wouldn’t judge you for it.

My life is sustainable because I don’t have a lot of material wants. If I did have a lot of wants, I would probably pursue and satisfy them. I know some people who do this, and I don’t have a problem with them, but I think they are trying to compensate for something else that is missing in their life. I already know what’s missing in my life, and living excessively doesn’t necessarily lead to me acquiring it. It’s simply something that can’t be easily bought.

As I mentioned, my lifestyle is fairly minimalistic. It wasn’t always this way though. At one point, I had lots of life artifacts just like many other people do. A few years ago, I did some major downsizing and since then I haven’t had the urge to live excessively or own a lot of things. There’s simply no one in my life I need to impress by doing this.

In my opinion, minimalism reduces the carbon footprint the most because every product you buy requires energy and raw materials to produce. Creating energy and processing raw materials causes quite a lot of the pollution and waste that exists in our world. Once these products are produced, they generally have a limited period of usefulness, like all material things. After this useful period is over, they end up in a landfill, or it requires more energy to recycle them. Basically, extreme consumerism is poisoning the Earth more than anything else, but it also creates jobs and makes a ton of money.

Do you have a minimalist lifestyle or are you a huge consumer and possibly a hoarder? Let me know in the comments! No judgements here. Don’t forget to subscribe!

What will I leave behind?

I’ve thought about this for years, and have probably had lots of different opinions on it along the way.

I think I used to believe that being remembered by your community was very important. I grew up in a small town where everyone knew everyone. From time to time, the little church houses would fill with people attending funerals to pay their last respects. I remember older people saying things like, it was a good turnout at so-and-so’s funeral, he was liked by all. Back then, it seemed like that was the best you could accomplish, being loved by family and friends enough that they would show up to bid you farewell to worlds unknown, say nice things about you, shed a few tears, and then move on with the rest of their lives, patiently awaiting their own time to come.

I also thought about more grander things from time to time, like I would do something amazing that would change the world. Maybe I would become famous, or invent something, or become an author and write books. This was a pleasant thought, because it would mean that I affected the lives of way more than just those who crossed my path physically, and I might even be immortalized through publications or history, and go on to be known and remember by people in far distant generations. This would probably be the best legacy I could hope for, but much more difficult to attain.

So really, the legacy you leave to future generations, is just a memory of the person you were in life, what they saw in you, how you made them feel inside, the ideas you gave them, and the experiences you shared together, real or imagined. Considering that, I hope they remember me as a person who sought to understand, a person who wanted to experience deeper things and stronger emotions, a person who wanted to challenge barriers to life satisfaction and happiness and rethink outdated traditions, and a person who accepted others as they truly are on the inside.

Agree or disagree? What’s your legacy?