Do teenagers care about charity?
December 22, 2008
Posted by CindyW in : Opinions & Thoughts , 6 comments
Last week I wrote about giving to charity in lieu of presents for our teenage nieces and nephews. My husband was of the opinion that teenagers would not care about any charity causes. I had some hope.
Here is the early report, as the nieces and nephews all got their charity gifts early (darn that thank-you email from the receiving organizations).
My fifteen year-old nephew who spends a lot of time surfing and thinking about surfing thought that the membership to the Surfrider Foundation was the coolest thing. In fact he found out that the Foundation had a local chapter on the island where he caught most of his waves. The fact it was founded by eco-minded surfers is way cool, dude.
Our horse crazy niece, to whom we gave a donation to the National Horse Protection League, was happy for a day. But she was saddened after learning on the website that nearly 100,000 horses were slaughtered for meat or sold to foreign countries for meat every year. I regret the gift somewhat. Is it fair for a twelve year old to learn the dark side of the world? Will it depress her or motivate her to learn more and act?
For our other niece, who thinks nothing when charging $500 to her mom’s credit card but is passionate about music and performing art, we donated to her community school of music and art. On the phone she told me that this was one of the most surprising presents she had ever received. “very cool” was her exactly words. I don’t think it can compete with the over-the-top presents she will get from her parents. Hopefully she will remember this one.
Nature conservancy membership went to our nephew who will embark on an international exchange program to Costa Rica next year. He called to say thank you. When asked whether he had checked out what the organization did, he said no but commented that he was glad someone was doing the conservation work in Costa Rica. “Hey, there are people who give money and there are people who do the work. I am definitely the former,” he half-joked.
I was ticked off, “Kid, you’ve got no money. What you have is all your parents’. So don’t you act like you are already a billionaire and throw money at all the problems.” I wanted to tell him that he missed the point of our donation for him - a chance for him to learn the various eco-hotspots in the world and what this wonderful organization was doing to preserve the biodiversity for his generations and beyond. But it seemed sort of pointless, as he has already adopted his parents’ world view.
Do teenagers care about charity? I’d venture to say yes if it is directly speaks to what they care about. Who knows, perhaps they will renew their membership/donation to these organizations and actually learn and act. One can always hope.
Happy Holidays!
CindyW at Organicpicks
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An entirely different list of holiday gifts
December 15, 2008
Posted by CindyW in : Fresh Look , 5 comments
I actually did this post last year. But it is probably still applicable this year. Last year I followed my own advice on a couple of the items. Will review at the bottom. Also added a couple of items for this year.
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Newsweek has done it. Treehugger has done it, And of course Oprah has done it. Not to be outdone, I have to do it too. Yes, I am talking about the holiday gift list, even though as you may have noticed I am not exactly proactive when it comes to shopping for presents. But ten days to go, I am putting together a list for people who don’t want to lose themselves in the labyrinth-like malls where ubiquitous bad clues (50% off signs) take you to all sorts of wrong places so the Minotaur can take your money and give you junk in return while tricking you into thinking that you or your loved ones REALLY need it.
So this year, do something different – give a present that does not require your loved ones to toss it to the are-you-kidding-me-who-can-I-unload-this-to pile right after opening your nicely tied box.
Best gifts come in small packages, or no packages at all
- Spa retreat gift certificate. Find a local spa you like and give a service as a present - facial, massage, makeover
- Private Yoga or Pilates lesson. A great gift for a post-holiday health kick-start
- Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) delivery. Health, yummy, seasonal and local produce or fruit delivered to the home for a month or a year. Find a CSA around you, make a call and decide how much and how often. Yep, that simple.
- Cleaning service. A clean home without breaking the back. In fact, to go with the service, it is an excellent time to try green clean products.
- Theatre or concert tickets. You can give movie gift cards or concert tickets - classic symphony or metal band, your choice. Last year I gave a pair of opera tickets to my in-laws and they were a hit.
- Family membership to a local museum, zoo or aquarium. A gift to the recipient and to the community. Locally I can recommend Coyote Point Museum, Monterey Bay Aquarium, San Francisco Zoo, San Jose Happy Hollow, San Jose Tech Museum, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
- Family menu subscription. Unusual but absolutely helpful. What’s Cooking plans meals and grocery lists every week, saving time and money. Best part? Every menu includes a part where children can help.
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Last year we gave our brother and sister in law two tickets to a San Francisco opera performance. It seemed that my brother in law preferred watching movies on one of his big screen TVs. Apparently his then fifteen year old son went with mom. Asked what he thought of it, our nephew said that he would’ve never gone if his dad had not forced him and his mom had not begged him. But he was sort of glad that he did. That was a huge success in my book - a teenage boy not walking out of an opera performance after ten minutes!
To my sister, I presented a spa gift certificate. She said it was a ridiculously pampering experience that she felt embarrassed while receiving the service. Hmmmm, good? bad? I am not quite sure.
We subscribed CSA for our other sister and brother in law’s family in North Carolina. Apparently they are still subscribers. Yay!
This year, with economy depressing everyone, including many non-profit organizations that rely on donations, I am adding donation to the list. It’s especially appropriate given all our nephews and nieces have STUFF burst out of their closets.
My husband is of the opinion that teenagers do not care about charity. I am not so sure. For our twelve year old niece who is horse crazy, we donated to the National Horse Protection League for her.
For our other niece who thinks of nothing when charging $500 to her mom’s credit card but is passionate about music and performing arts, we gave to her local community school of music and art in her name.
For our highly privileged sixteen year old nephew, who will embark on a semester of international exchange program in Costa Rica, we got him a membership to Nature Conservancy, an organization that works tirelessly to preserve the biodiversity in that country.
For our other nephew, who spent last summer surfing in North Carolina and California, we made a donation to “Surfrider Foundation for him. The organization was “founded in 1984 by a handful of surfers in Malibu, California” and now maintains over 50,000 members. It is dedicated to the protection and enjoyment of our world’s oceans.
Well, this is the way I see it: if my husband is right and our teenage nephews and nieces really don’t care for this sort of gifts, at least I know for sure that these organizations will enjoy the donation, especially during the current economic environment. On the other hand, if he is wrong, then everyone will smile.
Happy Holidays!
CindyW at Organicpicks
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Christmas wish?
December 8, 2008
Posted by CindyW in : Opinions & Thoughts , 8 comments
We got a call from my mother-in-law the Saturday after Thanksgiving, “I know you guys are busy. And I’ve been here only for three days. But can I trouble you to come and get me and dad tomorrow?”
My in-laws flew in from the east coast to visit their two sons in the west coast. The plan was for them to stay with us for a week before Thanksgiving and a week with their other son’s family for a week after Thanksgiving.
Their week with us was delightful, family beach trips, yoga classes, cacophonous singing sessions, nature walks, and three-generations running around in various playgrounds.
Then Thanksgiving day came. We drove an hour and a half north to my brother-in-law’s house. It was always a shocking experience to be there – new kitchen again, new bathroom again, bigger cars, bigger TVs, 9-hole course around the house.
This time around, there was a brand new outdoor fireplace, which was ablaze when we got there at noon. Sadly no one was around to feel the warmth. And it was still heating the unlimited quantity of chilly air when we drove away well into the night.
By now, we have come to realize that every time we go to my brother-in-law’s house, we come back needing a special shower to lose the smell of senseless profligacy. So we go as infrequently as a cordial but distant sibling relationship allows.
Still I was surprised at my mother-in-law’s plea for our help. She sounded exhausted, “I will explain later when you come tomorrow.” One more trip there? It would have exceeded our annual quota.
On the way back in the car, my MIL poured it all out, “I could not deal with it any more after Crista (her 12 year old grand daughter) called with a sales person from Nordstrom, asking for her mother’s approval for $800 on the credit card. I mean she’s 12 years old. What are they teaching her?” She was disgusted, “Have you ever seen her closet? You cannot fit one more piece of clothing. Nothing.”
I did however had the luck of seeing her bathroom counter – covered with make up bottles, tubes and jars. I had to remove a dozen of items from the sink to wash my hands.
Growing up on a farm in Ohio, my MIL is frugal in every way. Though she is quite well off, she rarely throws away a paper cup without exhausting its usage. By no means does she do this for the environment; it’s simply a lifelong habit enforced in an early age. No matter. Our end goal is the same.
In any case, seeing the material recklessness of her son’s family up close and personal almost hurt her in a visceral sort of way.
“Have you noticed that every room in the house has a large flat screen TV? All of them are on all day and all night? I have a headache from the constant noise in every corner of the house,” she continued, “Ken bragged that their utility bills ran a couple of thousand a month.”
“A couple of thousand!” she was clearly in disbelief.
We still had an hour before getting home.
“Remember the turkey we had on Thursday? We barely touched a quarter of it. Janet (her other daughter in law) threw it away after you left, because she said nobody would want the leftover meat.” She was mad now. Food touched a raw nerve, as she was born in the depression era and had images of hungry people burned in her memory.
I thought about the increasing number of people lining up outside food banks.
She wasn’t done, “Yesterday, a huge delivery truck came by. They got eight new dining room chairs. They have twelve right now. Janet did not have space for them, so they all went to the basement. She told me those chairs cost $1500 a piece.”
She shivered, “Do you think Janet is sick? She is on so many prescription drugs. And my son, what about him?”
Knowing they were rhetorical questions, I just sighed. She was so pained by the assault of excessiveness that she could not stay longer even just to be with her grandchildren.
“Perhaps the kids could’ve used your guidance,” I ventured to break her anger.
She waved her hand, “they are smart as hell. But unless there is a miracle, they are done for. I just wish the parents would spend more time with them, not more money on them.”
The mention of her grandchildren turned her fury into sadness.
A sense of helplessness and hopelessness hung in the car for the rest of the trip.
This was not what holidays were about.
This was not what family-get-togethers were about.
But I did not know what to say other than suggesting a long shower for her when we finally got home.
As I helped my kids write their cards to Santa this weekend, I wrote one too.
My wish for Christmas is for the have-nots to have a little bit more and for the have-too-muches to just stop accumulating. May we all seek joy within.
CindyW at Organicpicks
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Giving credit where credit is due
November 24, 2008
Posted by CindyW in : Opinions & Thoughts , 4 comments
Can you believe that Thanksgiving is this week?! Time seems to go faster and faster each year. Or is it just me?
Last year this time, I lamented on our seemingly thoughtless shopping culture and how the national shopping mania was damaging our environment.
My sentiment seems a bit different this year. We are in an unprecedented financial crisis. Many large companies in the Silicon Valley are in a panic mode, freezing all hiring, cutting jobs, and drastically reducing spending. Nationally it isn’t any better if not worse.
I almost feel guilty for not buying much stuff. Almost.
Here comes the biggest shopping day of the year, this Friday. What’s one to do? Honestly it is ridiculous that I am debating with myself whether I should go shopping to support the economy. Sigh.
Let’s say that somehow I decide to contribute to the economy this year, where should I put my dollars?
I’ve always been proud for not visiting Wal-mart, which has notorious labor and environmental practices.
So it surprised me to hear that the company announced in a sustainability summit in Beijing that all their suppliers were required to cut energy consumption by 20 percent, starting at the beginning of 2009.
Wal-mart has been working hard on supplier issues because they realized that the biggest part of their impact was not really their own operations, as big as they are, it’s what happens upstream, as they say, with all the products and where they’re made and there was only so long they could work on supply issues without going to China.
China supplies 70, 80 percent of the toys in the world, a huge chunk of the apparel, etc, etc. So they had to go there and what they’ve set is very tough goals – they said you have to meet certain environmental and social standards, you have to comply with the law in China, which is not something most manufacturers do.
Why is Wal-mart making such a seemingly stringent demand on its suppliers? I, for one, don’t believe a corporation is able to be or required to be altruistic.
Andrew Winston, a green consultant working for Wal-mart said, “I think the number of people who will pay more for green or sustainable products is still pretty small, and it’s probably going to stay small, especially now in tight times. But there’s sort of a different group of consumers, which is what some people call the conflicted consumers or conscious consumers. People who want more from their products. They think about where the product came from or how much energy it uses. And they care about those issues nearly as much as they care about the price and quality. But they want those things, I think, with no tradeoffs and that’s the big goal, I think, in sustainable products, finding ways to satisfy customers and satisfy their environmental and social needs without asking them to pay more.”
I think Wal-mart is just running a smart business. Years ago, little known to most customers, Wal-mart had the most advanced information system which served to reduce their operation cost a great deal.
Today they are simply betting that energy reduction IS the future. Product safety and labor fairness will very soon become a part of standard business practice. Wal-mart is staying ahead of the curve. When the rest of the retailers catch on, Wal-mart will remain to be the leader. This kind sound business strategy, I can respect.
Now that Wal-mart has talked the talk, it is time to watch whether they can walk the walk. For me, who remains to be somewhat a skeptic of Wal-mart for now, Walmart Watch is a place to monitor the company’s true behavior.
Shop at Wal-mart this year, anyone?
CindyW at Organicpicks
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Economy vs environment
November 17, 2008
Posted by CindyW in : Opinions & Thoughts , 7 comments
The daily dose of ever so depressing economic news does not exactly cheer up any of us. A couple of days ago, a friend forwarded me the now famous doom and gloom slides many entrepreneurs had recently received from one of their elite venture capital firms.
The gist of the 56 page presentation is that this recession is unprecedented in a perfect-storm sort of way – housing recession, over-leveraged financials, frozen credit market, global slowing, and a few other factors have all come together and pushed our economy to where we are today. Worse yet, there is no telling where this storm is taking us.
Yeah, all very depressing.
The slide that really caught my eye was the one that screamed consumer-driven economy. In 1987, the US GDP was $4.7 trillion, to which consumer spending contribution 66%. Twenty year later, the US GDP grew to be $13.8 trillion and 73% of which came from consumer spending.
In other words, we shop to generate three quarters of our GDP!
In comparison, consumer spending accounts for 55% of the GDP of Japan, the second latest economy in the world.
I have been an advocate for buying less and enjoying life more for a couple of years. But I am beginning to feel that I am contributing to the recession.
Do I feel bad about wrecking the economy? Not really. We have an unsustainable economy driven by an unsustainable consumption lifestyle both from the financial and environmental perspectives.
But in front us is a tanking economy that is threatening to take more jobs away from productive members of the society. Then what? Social unrest?
How do we approach this dilemma? Do we really only have a bad option and a worse one – economic collapse or consuming the planet to death?
Is it possible to keep the economic pie just as big and the consumer spending slice just as hefty without pillaging natural resources?
A friend of mine thinks buying high quality and durable goods that are made with more renewable material is a step forward. Instead of having twelve pairs of throw-away shoes, she suggests that we buy four pairs that are made from sustainable material with durable quality, “You use less raw material, but pay a lot more per pair, thereby still contribute to the economy.”
But isn’t the concept entirely anti-fashion? Can the fashion world ever be convinced that durability can be trendy and classy? I don’t see it.
How about electronics? Stop making crap that falls apart at the magic two year mark (so called planed obsolescence)? But the computer industry, and by extension the electronic gadget industry, are based on Moore’s Law – a new generation every 18 months.
Then we also have the question about the employment. If we purchase fewer items, albeit things with much higher quality and durability, do we still require the same number of designers and workers? Shall we institute a 35 hour workweek to spread the work like some European countries? I’d personally enjoy the shorter workweek, but also recognize that it would be somewhat an anti-competition policy.
Instead of stimulating the consumer-based economy, should the government boost a green economy that is based on overhauling our long-term infrastructure?
Build national grid to connect energy sources (where solar and wind energy can be optimally generated) to consumption centers (where the energy is used)? A huge project with work for a whole lot of people.
Weatherize millions of old buildings to significantly cut down energy waste? Another tremendous project with massive employment opportunities.
Support innovative companies in driving renewable energy cost to lower than coal?
Alas, I have a lot of questions and clearly no answers. But by asking myself these questions, I begin to see opportunities rather than just the doom and gloom.
With crises come opportunities. If you are down from listening to the morning news, just imagine if we do it right this time, we may just be able to survive the perfect storm and change the world.
One can always hope.
CindyW at Organicpicks
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Just one more, I promise
November 10, 2008
Posted by CindyW in : Opinions & Thoughts , 4 comments
I know I know, we are all very tired of the election. It’s all done. Let’s move on to the real tasks, and our equally historic challenges aren’t getting easier by the day.
I for one, really want to move on to a personal rant about how instead of giving $25 billion (they already got $25 billion not long ago) bailout to the big three auto companies, we can kick start a green economy, no matter how local, small and nascent it may be.
But I will do one last election related post - a forwarded letter from a good friend’s dad, who has been a minister in the rural areas of North Carolina for more than forty years. It made me want to work hard towards a better and a greener world.
Dear (my friend and his wife’s names),
I hope that you all are as happy today as we are about yesterday’s election. We have never been as involved in an election before as we have been this year–actually going out and knocking on doors some this past Saturday. This has put me in a reflective mood and I want to share some thoughts and observations with you.
The leadership of the country has passed to your generation. (I am really relieved that it didn’t pass up to my generation.) Since I still think of you as young (parents always do) this is an astonishing change, but it is also an exciting and important step forward into the future for our country. You are now in charge! This means we can really look forward to the future and get away from focusing so much on the past. But this is an awesome responsibility for Barack Obama and all of you in that generation. Your children’s future and the future of the world which are a matter of real interest to grandparents is in your hands. I have great confidence in Obama and in all of you to fulfill those responsibilities. For the remainder of our lives mom and I will watch the unfolding future of our family and all the world’s families with great interest.
Of course, this is has been a transformational election with the elevation of an African American to the Presidency. This is even more marvelous to my generation than it might be to yours. I grew up in the segregated South. I vividly remember my childhood movie theater in Clemson where all blacks had to sit in the “colored balcony.” I remember separate bathrooms and water coolers for whites and coloreds. The only black persons I knew as a child were a few women who worked in our home occasionally and for my grandparents. I never attended school with a black student until I was in graduate school at Duke Divinity School.
I lived, studied and began work during the Civil Rights days of the 1960s. Post 60s persons may have a hard time believing the tension and difficulty of those days–but then so do I! I will never forget the horror of the night that M. L. King was shot in 1968 (a year before Eric and Sara were born). As the operating head of Brevard College that year I was hosting the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees, when someone came in the room with news of King’s death. The President of the board, a man I had always respected as a leader and generous benefactor to the college, actually clapped and said something like, “it’s about time!”
Now just 40 years later many millions of white men and women have helped to elect a man of African descent to become our President. As your mom and I said to each other this morning as we got up–”It’s a new day!” I am just grateful that I have had the opportunity of living through such a time as this and to be able to see the changes for the better that are occurring. Though I still know that in many quarters racism is still alive and I fear the nuts that are still out there somewhere hating Obama and all people not like themselves.
But enough about the past. As you can tell mom and I are excited about the future even at our age. We are proud of all of you and thankful for the wonderful children you have brought into the world and the positive direction you are giving them. Continue to let them learn about the world and life. Help them to have faith in the future and not to ignore the spiritual side of life. I cannot begin to comprehend the world they will live in when they are 68 years old.
In any case this is an historic week. I face the future with more confidence than before. I am proud of and love my family very much. Thank you for letting me share some of my reflections on the meaning of what has happened this week. AND REMEMBER YOUR GENERATION IS NOW IN CHARGE!!!
CindyW at Organicpicks
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Seems like a dream. Yet…
November 5, 2008
Posted by CindyW in : Opinions & Thoughts , 1 comment so far
From New York Times:
His triumph was decisive and sweeping, because he saw what is wrong with this country: the utter failure of government to protect its citizens. He offered a government that does not try to solve every problem but will do those things beyond the power of individual citizens: to regulate the economy fairly, keep the air clean and the food safe, ensure that the sick have access to health care, and educate children to compete in a globalized world.
CindyW at Organicpicks
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Earn your right to complain
November 3, 2008
Posted by CindyW in : Opinions & Thoughts , 8 comments
Tomorrow is a big day. If you can vote, vote. If you cannot vote, take a friend to vote.
When it comes to this particular political process, I must admit that I have a very pathetic record. Embarrassingly I have never voted until this year. You are aghast. I know, I know.
I never thought my vote mattered. Texas , where I lived for 10 years, reliably went Republican regardless how I voted. California , where I live now, is staunchly blue.
But that is not the point. It took me a dozen of years to realize that voting is my way of earning the right to complain. It has broken my heart to see the environmental destruction in the last eight years. But you know what? I could not be bothered to vote in 2000 or 2004. So I shouldn’t be whining.
Vote. I have sent in my absentee ballot.
But before you vote, please consider a number of recent events.
The White House is working to enact a wide array of federal regulations, many of which would weaken government rules aimed at protecting consumers and the environment, before President Bush leaves office in January.
Those and other regulations would help clear obstacles to some commercial ocean-fishing activities, ease controls on emissions of pollutants that contribute to global warming, relax drinking-water standards and lift a key restriction on mountaintop coal mining.
Thanks, this is really timely, since our drink water already contains rocket fuel.
Definitely check out the environmental scorecards of presidential candidates, senatorial candidates, and house candidates, thoughtfully put together by League of Conservation Voters.
Last, but not the least - if you are in California, you know that proposition 8 is highly contested. Please please read the incredibly touching and personal letter written by one of Greenbean’s family members. Every time I think about it, I am in tears.
It reminds me of Loving vs. Virginia case in 1967. I am stealing Wikipedia’s notes here:
“The plaintiffs, Mildred Loving (a woman of African and Rappahannock Native American descent, 1939 – May 2, 2008) and Richard Perry Loving (a white man, October 29, 1933 – June 1975), were residents of the Commonwealth of Virginia who had been married in June 1958 in the District of Columbia, having left Virginia to evade the Racial Integrity Act, a state law banning marriages between any white person and any non-white person.
Upon their return to Caroline County, Virginia, they were charged with violation of the ban. They were caught sleeping in their bed by a group of police officers who had invaded their home in the hopes of finding them in the act of sex (another crime). In their defense, Ms. Loving had pointed to a marriage certificate on the wall in their bedroom. That, instead of defending them, became the evidence the police needed for a criminal charge since it showed they had been married in another state.
Specifically, they were charged under Section 20-58 of the Virginia Code, which prohibited interracial couples from being married out of state and then returning to Virginia, and Section 20-59, which classified “miscegenation” as a felony punishable by a prison sentence of between one and five years.
On January 6, 1959, the Lovings pleaded guilty and were sentenced to one year in prison, with the sentence suspended for 25 years on condition that the couple leave the state of Virginia. The trial judge in the case, Leon Bazile, echoing Johann Friedrich Blumenbach’s 18th-century interpretation of race, proclaimed that
“Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and He placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with His arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that He separated the races shows that He did not intend for the races to mix.”
The Lovings moved to the District of Columbia, and on November 6, 1963 the American Civil Liberties Union filed a motion on their behalf in the state trial court to vacate the judgment and set aside the sentence on the grounds that the violated statutes ran counter to the Fourteenth Amendment.”
After years of going in and out of different levels of federal and state courts, the Lovings was finally vindicated in 1967.
“The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the convictions in a unanimous decision, dismissing the Commonwealth of Virginia’s argument that a law forbidding both white and black persons from marrying persons of another race, and providing identical penalties to white and black violators, could not be construed as racially discriminatory. The court ruled that Virginia’s anti-miscegenation statute violated both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In its decision, the court wrote:
“Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” fundamental to our very existence and survival…. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.”
Despite this Supreme Court ruling, such laws remained on the books, although unenforced, in several states until 2000, when Alabama became the last state to repeal its law against mixed-race marriage.”
Mere forty years ago, my husband and I would have been considered criminals by marrying each other.
We’ve come a long way and we have a long way to go.
Please vote.
CindyW at Organicpicks
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The virtue of imperfection
October 27, 2008
Posted by CindyW in : Green Journal , 6 comments
Last week I went to a parent-teacher conference for my 6 year old. The teacher explained to me that, one of the challenges kids at this tender age faced was frustration with their own imperfection. The letters were not written uniformly, the spellings were not always correct and the math came out wrong sometimes.
“They get very frustrated with themselves sometimes,” Ms A told me the downside of trying to be perfect. Interesting, I thought. I did observe my 6-year old grunting and throwing herself on the floor because she could not make all her written words leveled.
I must have out grown that, whew! Lucky me, I was relieved. I tolerate 15% imperfections in many things I do. No wonder I love Oscar Wilde who so enjoyed lavishing on human imperfections.
Wait, but being content with imperfection has also separated me from Bill Gates (okay fine, among 1769 other things). Our house is perpetually only sort of clean, my meals are just edible, and I am mostly on time to any given event. It seems that the only area that I go beyond sorta-kinda-good-enough is my work.
How much should we tolerate imperfection? When does the tolerance become just an excuse for not trying hard. Is 85% is right cut off line for good enough? 95%?
I suspect everyone has her/his own threshold.
I started line dry our laundry a couple of months ago. But my family objects to the stiff and scratch towels. So we’ve reached a compromise – using the dryer for one load of laundry of which the fluffiness is demanded. Sometimes due to poor planning, I have to dry a load at night. Some weeks I do much better than other weeks. Collectively my laundry has been line dried 85% of the time.
For the most part, we get our food from our local farmers’ market, mostly organic. We still go out to eat at least every other week, sometimes once a week. A lot of the ingredients of restaurant food are neither local nor organic – no point of fooling myself. Not being an organic locavore all the time is okay. I’ve given myself the permission not to be a purist.
Most of the time I walk or bike to our local bakery to get coffee and a bagel. Some days I am in a hurry or am simply in an autopilot mode, I drive there. After chastising myself a bit, I usually don’t to feel guilty for long.
It seems that 85% is where my threshold hovers around. For now it works. Strangely not expecting perfection keeps me from giving up on my efforts.
Perhaps that is the reason that I have a hard time participating in challenges, which frequently require that additional 15% effort. It’d be too easy to beat myself up for not getting the perfect outcome.
If trying to get to 100% kicks the joy out of being green or renders 99% accomplishment a failure, is it worth it?
Mostly, this is just my weak justification for not trying harder. But also, don’t you feel better about yourself now? Don’t let the imperfection stop you from trying and trying some more.
Maybe some day I will drag myself to the 95% finish line. But for right now, I am hanging out in the good-enough zone.
CindyW at Organicpicks
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Autopilot reset
October 20, 2008
Posted by CindyW in : Green Journal , 6 comments
“No, I’d like you to change my profile. No, I want compact cars,” my husband was visibly flustered after 15 minutes of conversation with a representative from a national car rental company.
I could tell what he wanted to say, “How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t want your upgrades.” But he controlled himself.
My husband is a regular business traveler and rents cars from a particular national car rental company that is in virtually every U.S. airport, big or small. Often, when he gets to the counter, he is told that his reservation for a compact car is no longer available. “Fortunate” for him, he is getting an upgrade, varying from a luxury car, a truck, a minivan to a Hummer. But right there at the counter he doesn’t feel so grateful. He wants his reservation to be honored, because he doesn’t want to lug himself and only himself around in a minivan.
“When I complain at the counter, I always get the look – like hey we are giving you a Grand Cherokee. What’s your problem?” my husband related his experience to me.
My mind was somewhere else. I wondered why the compact cars were often out. I wondered if more customers preferred smaller cars these days given the gas price. I wondered if the rental company intentionally gave “upgrades” to business travelers since they could get their expenses reimbursed by their employers, thus were less sensitive to gas price.
“Hey, you are not listening,” my husband saw me wander off, “the point is that they refuse to see my perspective. I don’t want to drive a truck even when I don’t pay for the gas.” That is why he was on the phone with the company to try to end the “upgrades” once and for all.
Good point. But you can’t really blame the reps behind the rental car counters. For years, people want bigger cars and indeed feel lucky when they unexpectedly get an upgrade. I will bet if I worked at a rental counter for a few years, my mind would click into the autopilot mode – bigger being better.
When someone shows up and makes a counter-intuitive demand, it trips the autopilot. The reps have to readjust their auto responses trained over years of working behind the counter.
Going against the grain upsets the autopilot.
But you know what? If the autopilot gets tripped often, then the program in the corporate brain and therefore the employee responses will be reset.
Another example is the checkout counter at grocery stores. Ever notice the efficient bagging procedure? The clerk opens the plastic bags on the rack, puts the grocery in, lifts the bags and puts into the cart, in a matter of seconds. They do it a few hundred times a day without thinking about it. But then you come along, bringing your own bags, completely interrupting the autopilot process flow. It is not a big deal, but it interrupts the flow and it trip the preset mind. And you wonder why the grocery store clerks get annoyed. At least they used to be.
But human minds can be retrained fairly easily. The clerks at my local Wholefoods and Trader Joe’s stores have gotten used to seeing a variety of bags brought in by customers.
Efficiently they have reset their procedure. Look for customers’ own bags first. If yes, bagging procedure starts with the bags. If no, ask paper of plastic and start the procedure there.
It takes about 3 seconds more. No customers have ever complained about the additional 3 seconds at the checkout counter. Program reset successful.
For years, I put just-washed laundry to the dryer that is stacked on top of the washer without really thinking about it. Reading other people air/sun dry their laundry did not reverse my automated action for months, until one perfectly sunny and hot day. From that day on, I reset my laundry autopilot program. Now I have a new wash and sun/air dry routine to follow, not harder, just different.
In many aspects of our daily life, we train our brain to operate automatically to be efficient. How many of us think about, really think about the route we take to go to work or drop off kids every morning? How often do we think about our before-bed routines?
What does it take for us to stop in our normal tracks and reset our autopilot programs? External incentives, such as bag credits? External disincentives like increased electricity rate? Internal motivations? Whatever it maybe, may we all stop the autopilot every so often, reset and readjust.
CindyW at Organicpicks
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