It’s a red flowy dress; the kind that’s perfect for summers — breazy, floral pattern, comfortable. It has a slight button down pattern in the bust area, a nice crisp collar and a belt too! I wore it twice: Once on my birthday and once for an outdoor evening hangout. The third time I wore it — just this past week, I thought to myself: This is pretty, I should wear it more often. With that, I thought through all the choices I, a self proclaimed environment conscious, climate crisis aware person, make. I don’t shop much, I don’t hoard much and yet there’s these red dresses in my closet which are perfectly fine and yet keep getting pushed further and further in as I give in to tempting ads after I’m done swiping and liking posts about the climate crisis that is our reality.
I’m not one to absolve big corporations and governments of their inaction, but I do wonder, how many such red dresses could we collectively have avoided. From baby formula, to Sriracha sauce, we’ve seen and dealt with a bunch of shortages recently.
I work in catering part-time along with school and a couple of my colleagues work the job day in and out to be able to afford luxurious stuff. They work, buy things, wear said things to events, work, repeat. I know I sound judgemental of their lifestyle here, but I do often wonder what’s the point — of working to just gather stuff and to keep repeating the cycle.
I’m hopefully not just rambling here but instead poking you to think of all the “stuff” you have and what you really need and use. Something that’s helped me recently is postponing non-essential purchases twice, at least. If I get tempted once and want it, I shelf it. If I think of it again — usually along the lines of convincing myself that it’s a need and not a want — I table the thought. On eight out of ten ocassions, I either never think of those things again, or not for another month or so, at least.
Think of your carbon footprint. For my twenty sixth birthday, in two weeks, I’ll be wearing the same dress.
Here’s some related stuff I saw on the internet this week:
A Parisian General Store’s Radical Message for Its Customers? Buy Less
This woolly mammoth tusk that showed up in Alaska is a chilling glimpse into the future
That’s all for now. See you all next week! Oh and, here’s me in the said dress—
I wish I had that level of self-control in my twenties! Lack of financial control is partly how I ended up in India. But also, you should enjoy your twenties, don't put too many limits on yourself. It's a great age to make as many mistakes as possible and you'll still be fine. Moving to India ended up being the best thing that happened to me. As you get older, dive deeper into the rat race, and do more adulting, life tends to force spreadsheet budgeting upon you. #EnglishUncle