Doing More... Or Doing Less?
The first thing that I have been reminded of this week is that changing a habit is difficult, it almost feels counter intuitive. We have all done it, right? Try to work ourselves into functioning in a different way, but still finding the norm in what it was before. The bike ride didn’t happen on Monday, one sweet kid had an early dismissal, another had a rough time entering into the first day of school. I felt frustrated trying to keep with the plan. Then, the second reminder came, have patience in the imperfection as it shifts into something new… go slow… let the change become what it is. Our habits have formed over years, so to reform will also take time. It’s Tuesday and today the bike ride happened. Maybe it won’t look exactly as planned, but it is still cutting out a small slice of those everyday fossil fuels.
To live differently, thinking more about the people and places involved in what we do, using less resources, living in a better way…What does all of that mean? How can it be possible if it adds to the already full load we carry in our busy adult lives? This small change I am making to ride a portion of the day feels like a lot, and it hasn’t started raining or snowing yet. Maybe it feels like doing more now, but as it becomes routine, possibly it could feel like doing less…? So what if I struggled this week with the habit change, maybe next week I will begin to feel more free, maybe I will celebrate my short liberation from the car-even for just a piece of the day. Onwards and upwards to living a life that contributes to a world I dream about and less laden with natural resources!!!
