Saving the Environment with a Simple Mindset Change
Governing your thoughts to save our planet
Traditionally, we are taught to do a ton of things all at once to save the environment: Pick up trash, recycle, carpool to burn less fossil fuels, the list is endless. It seems like people are constantly telling you what not to do to save our planet. But what if I told you to stop recycling and work on your mind instead?
A lot of things you read about the environment are truly depressing if we are being honest. The future does look grim for our planet most times. Because of this, people generally have a reluctant stance on saving our planet.
It’s like when you go to do the dishes for your parents but then they ask you to do it and now it’s the absolute last thing you want to do. Your mindset shifted from willingness to reluctance. This same thing happens when starting to address environmental issues.
I’m sure you’ve caught yourself asking “what is my small contribution going to do long term?”
This is completely fair to ask because the problems of our planet are considerable.
However, that is not said to discourage you. A mindset change could go a longer way than you think.
As a freshman in college studying marine biology at the time, I was learning a lot of science. I was processing a lot of equations, formulas, lab reports, the list is endless. This is definitely something I am interested in and agree is important, but as I started to think more on my future as a scientist, I realized my mindset was more ‘conservation-focused’.
I wanted to help change minds. I recognized this desire I had to apply what I have been learning in my classes to the real world and actually DO SOMETHING about it. I wanted to let people know the why. But I realized this was not going to happen if the people I was trying to convince weren't willing to hear what I had to say.
In my writing career as of late, I started to mull over this idea in my head, and realized it was a state of mindfulness I was referring to. I tried to come up with a term that captured my thoughts.
I coined this term ‘conservation mindfulness’
I like to think this term means to constantly think on how your daily life and the decisions you make effects our environment. Being able to be self aware of your thoughts is a tough thing to master. But I think being mindful can be simpler than it seems.
As you’re leaving your house, you turn your lights off. Why? Maybe it’s to decrease your energy bill. Or maybe, it’s to conserve energy.
Either way, the end goal is to use less energy, right?
That is conservation mindfulness.
Here’s some tips to become better at conservation mindfulness:
Use quiet times in your day to think about what you did today to help our environment. Did you recycle something? Did you carpool? Even if you say no to either, you are still in a state of conservation mindfulness.
Ask yourself if you did those things reluctantly or with willingness?
Encourage your friends and family to be mindful of the environment with every little thing they do so you can do it together. Build a community of people that can help keep you accountable, and you them.
Now as a junior studying environmental science, I would define conservation mindfulness as a constant headspace of caring for and desiring to protect our environment in the best human way possible.
I haven’t quite decided if I think this comes naturally to all people, or if it is solely for the scientifically focused. I do think all people can achieve this, but it takes work!
I think worldview plays a huge part in conservation mindfulness as well. Regardless of your religious or spiritual views, everyone feels some type of connection to our planet. For me, I feel most connected to the Earth when I a swimming in the ocean. Feeling the water rush over my head as I dive under a wave brings me so much peace.
For others it may be taking a silent walk in a forest.
Even others, it may be just leaving a window open and listening to the birds sing.
Once people find something in nature they enjoy, it is instinctive to want to preserve that.
Find your way of connecting to the Earth, and you will become more mindful of it in your daily life.
If people become more willing to save the environment beginning with a mindset change, I believe there will be less division in our world and more group effort to help our planet.
Instead of doom and gloom, maybe environmental writing should also shift its focus to mindfulness and how this can save our planet in the same way picking up trash or recycling does.
So….how will you use your mind to save the environment this week?
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