SAY NO TO PLASTIC: PLASTIC POLLUTION

This Earth is all we have. With its fall we will fall. We have been nourished and nurtured by this very Earth we call mother. Sadly we are the ones responsible for its downfall. To understand life, we created science. This science became all powerful and to ease human life invented many things..PLASTIC was one of them.

Plastic came up in the year 1907. The properties of this material made it immensely popular. It soon tentacled into every arena of human life. It was easy and cheap which attributed to its wide acceptance even in poorest of the nations. Its wide popularity curtailed the fact that plastic is non biodegradable. Most of the forms of plastic are not recyclable as well. The polymers of plastic take more than 1000 years to break down in natural conditions. The menace of plastic has depleted Earth of its natural beauty.

The warning signs of ecological collapse are everywhere. Its killing organisms of both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystem. With growing extinction of species governments have moved resources to curb the problem and many have banned the use of single use plastic. Government of India, although late, has joined the league.

We, the people, are the final consumer of plastic. As consumers we have more power than the government in curbing this menace. "With power comes great responsibility", indeed we have a great responsibility on our shoulders. The responsibility of saving our very planet. Making sure that our existence does not come at the cost of other organisms death. Humans have come this far without plastic. However impossible it may seem we can sustain ourselves without single use plastic. The need? Just responsible consumerism.

The only thing we can best control is our mind. We can choose to go zero waste. While shopping we are at the consumer end. Being judicious of what we buy can significantly reduce the waste we create. Rather than buying packaged food everytime,we can opt to buy in bulk. While grocery shopping we can opt for food that are packed in recyclable containers rather than buying food packed in single use plastic that after use will go into landfill and remain there for the next 1000 years. Would we like to become the generation with plastic waste as its legacy? Surely, we don't.

A simple choice of carrying a reusable bag while shopping can save us from generating tons of plastic in our lifetime. Similarly carrying a reusable water bottle can save us our money and planet as well. A win-win for both. This is not the end. Avoiding packaged snacks can help us maintain zero waste lifestyle as well as save us from future cardiovascular diseases.  Again a win-win. The attractive aspect of such a lifestyle are many like good health, less toxins in the body, cleaner homes and surrounding, and most importantly monetary savings.

Living a plastic free lifestyle can save money. This is because we avoid packaged food and hence we avoid the packaging cost that goes into it. Bulk purchase are cheaper alternative to the packaged food. Nobody has to strive to become perfect in this and get demotivated. To save our planet we need millions to carry out imperfect plastic free living rather than few living this lifestyle perfectly. To our benefit, carrying out this lifestyle is very easy in our country. We just have to be conscious while consuming and that is all our PLANET needs..OUR CARE..

DELAYED GRATITUDE..

Our world today is filled with materialistic attractions. People today live paycheck to paycheck to fulfill their lust for such materialistic demands. They are not needs. This is true because such materialistic distractions are outcome of capitalism. These things are advertised in such a way that they grab sudden attention. People are made to believe that they absolutely need it. Thus these luxuries become needs rather than being just demands.

There have been studies that prove keeping cash away every month can result in good wealth accumulation. While this is true but the sad reality is that people spend this money on such luxuries. This results into stagnation and they do not move up the financial ladder. People believe that they could have better lives if they would get a pay hike. But this does not solve the problem. Once this spending habit gets embedded in our life style, with a pay raise we just increase our spending, thus remaining financially stagnant as earlier. The money is just a tool. It becomes powerful only if we give it the power.

The method or may I call it the practise of delayed gratitude is a habit when incorporated can do wonders in our life. This in the most simple way means postponing the wants for a later period so that we can concentrate on securing the future first. It does not mean that we should give up our wants. This practise in turn tells us to have conscious purchases. To give our purchase some time so that we can categorise it properly as a need or a want.

The categorisation is crucial. When a thing is a need and we can afford it we should do it right away. But once the thing falls under the second category we should give it time. We should ask ourselves whether our lives would be better when we incorporate that thing? Whether we have any alternative for that thing which is cheaper but can do the task equally well? Such questions will give us time to think about our purchase decision. And as seen, most of the times people avoid buying that thing. Thus hard earned money or soul kept savings is saved.

Some individuals may argue that we have one life and we should live it to the fullest. YES, we should. But having material possessions does not always make one happy. Happiness is a choice and we should only allow those things into our lives which can compliment our joy of living. Being financially deprived leaches away happiness and no one wants that. That is the reason we see people working soo hard to secure a living. But then these people give away their hard earned money is search of happiness in material things. They come out depressed.

We should have a balance of everything. We should delay possessions but not happiness. In the race to obtain more materialistic things people forget to live and end up having a half life. A life of regret at the end is what they get. Thus practising delayed gratitude can do wonders. Incorporate it as a habit and see dramatic changes in your life and personal finances..

IMPROVISING..

Improvise simply means to act in the flow. ACT being the center of this thought. We achieve the greater success in life not by avoiding the hurdles but by struggling through them and improvising at each and every point. Yes it is important to have a plan but we all know life is uncertain. It rarely goes according to our thoughts. Things often fall in the right places. In such a scenario, improvising becomes crucial. But there are limits to it too. Those limits can only be known with experience.

Our life becomes meaningful only when we fix an aim. This gives direction to our efforts. Without aim we can only flow with life. In such case improvising becomes impossible. Life is uncertain and it is never a one door/ direction phenomenon. It is filled with opportunities of growth and success. These opportunities are disguised and hence a mind which can improvise each scenario can recognise it and act on it. Without such a mindset we will struggle and make the journey hard.

Allow me to use a famous line from the movie series named harry porter. It goes as "There are always two choices, one is easy and the other is right" . Improvising in a situation never means to leave the morality and gulp the chance available. Life has a bad habit of testing peoples characters. The ones who truly shine are the ones who have chosen the right. Such wisdom to choose the right comes from experience.

In every situation the first thing that needs to be done is analysing the situation with a calm mind. This will let us screen out the opportunities. After this, an impartial analysis should be done. This will make us avoid getting into traps and doing the thing that is right. Finally the most important thing is to act. Without this final step we cannot move ahead. Thus improvising is easy to hear but in reality it involves many crucial elements. When we look back on our lives we can easily make out the linkages. These linkages are based on our decisions which are related to our skills of improvising. Practising slow living can really help with this. As per every skill, improvising can also improve with practise and experience. Thus keep living and keep improvising.. 

ART OF BEING BUSY..

We have a lot of responsibility. It may be personal requirements or societal demands. All such tasks demand our time. Adding to our already busy schedule is our future that demands time of its own. These all are tasks that make us busy. They may not be adding any value to our lives, but as they eat away our time, they make us busy.

Busy is a term we all are familiar with. It means that our physical and mental selves are occupied with a task. In early days humans had limited tasks. The only thing that kept them busy was the task of their own survival. With the humanization of Earth, survival is not a task but an accepted reality. Food gathering and hunting have been replaced as we entered into the era of surplus food production. Although all this advancements have taken place, human life seems to have become more and more busy rather than being a relieved one.

With the emergence of society things got more and more complicated. Humans now had different kinds of tasks. They now had to earn. This earning enabled them to have food and other necessary items. Then came social responsibilities. Humans now had to play diverse roles which all required sincere attention. As aspirations grew, competition also grew. People had to work hard to reach their goals and make their dreams come true. The most recent is social media. A communication tool which transformed and made a space for itself. For most individuals this is the most time consuming thing of a day which keep them busy but does not provide with anything substantial other than pleasure.

So we have looked into the timeline of humankind and seen the things that make them busy evolve. We all have aims and aspirations, but we are humans, so we can not remain without being social. Then the question is how can we indulge only in those things that can keep us busy but add value to our lives at the same time. This requires very deep thinking. A careful thought will keep us busy in a positive way, this is the true art of being busy. The secret is mental decluttering. We have to group tasks into two categories. Indulge more in tasks that help us grow and limit time donated to the other category ones.

This idea is not alien. We hear about it all the time. But it is high time now to implement it into our lives. Taking social media as an example. Unless you earn a living or any substantial opportunity from it, limiting social media is the wise choice. Next is social demands. Society is made up of people. People have their own lives to care of. Thus indulging more in societal essentials is a foolish choice unless you are doing something worthwhile for the welfare of the masses. The only thing that can keep you positively busy is the work done towards yourself. These are the work you put into to make your dreams come true and make your life worthwhile. Being busy working for yourself and growing while doing it is the true meaning of life. All other things that occupy our time and make us busy are not worth the attention they get. Classify the task first, segregate them and then start working. This will free up more time and help us enjoy life as well as grow us into a mature human being..

IMPORTANCE OF A GOOD CIRCLE..

The group we hang out with truly defines us and our personality. Some can also say that our personality is shaped by the people we choose to hang out with. It is rightly said that we are as good as the circle we choose to be in.

People learn from their surrounding. They seek traits from all sort of sources, other people being the most important of these sources. Thus it is advisable to choose these people wisely. The group you want to be in should be in every way supportive and enriching. The result of choosing a wrong group to hang out with can be disastrous. It can result into complete deviation from the path you aimed to trail upon. Our focus thus while choosing our group should be on quality because quantity in no way helps in this race called life.

Leadership is an important quality in today's society. People who have such influential qualities are always of great value for corporates. This value is inculcated in us by the group we choose to be in. They are the people who support for a growth with pure heart and have healthy criticism to offer which moulds our character further. Life skills can be learnt. The thing that is crucial is that we choose the right source to learn them so that they don't backfire on us.

Taking about life skills, another important trait in leadership is mutual growth. Leaders lead the way so that everyone under them can achieve their aspirations. While being in a group we learn to have this mutual feeling of growth. Members together grow and handle the setbacks together. This the very reason that we find little contrast in a group which has been built with the primary aim of building mutually. Billionaires prefer the company of other billionaires in their group because this group would help them grow, learn from other members mistakes and most importantly handle the set backs together.

The value of things can never be known until we look back on their influence on us as a person. Similarly the value added to us by our group can only be known when we look back and analyse the sources of the traits in us that we value today. Almost every such trait must have been developed by being in the company of that select few or have been perfected by them. Having an influential group is very crucial but choosing those select few should not be done in haste. People add up at every stage of our life. We have to be the judge to know who are worth keeping and who are just for the time being. After all life is in the quality and not quantity..