A Year of Living Generously

Several months ago, I posted about a few simple patterns I would initiate in my life, starting off my year of living generously and with a grateful heart. The hope was that those patterns would become habits and mere background activities in my life -losing the feeling that new patterns have to feel time-consuming and hard. There's also the firm belief, reinforced in my personal life in silly ways lately, that little things done daily really do make a difference. Since that post, I've connected with these people in the UK: Generous Living. Every month, they send a list of tasks that other people have undertaken for the month. You sign on or not, as you please. There's support and conversation, if you wish to participate. The site hasn't realized its full potential in terms of social networking and interactivity, but I'll bet that they do before long.

In any case, here's my list for the month. Sign on if you're interested. Please hold me accountable.

• Become a fair trader in more than coffee. The specific task at hand is to buy new sheets for the guest beds. The Christmas company had to sleep on Rainbow Brite (or some such thing) sheets. That stuff is going to the homeless shelter and grown-up sheets are coming. I'm looking for organic cotton, ethically grown and purchased. We'll see what happens.
• Switch to energy saving lightbulbs throughout the house. Mostly this is done. The long-suffering spouse inherited that male chromosome (or maybe it's a father thing) that lights left on in empty rooms make him nuts. He's entirely convinced that our electric bill would be minuscule if people would just get their "lights in empty rooms" fetish under control. So, his fascination with lightbulbs -which I will research and write up one day, I swear- has led to compact fluorescent bulbs in most lamps. We'll just finish that up. He'll be thrilled.
• Eliminate clutter -As St. Basil said, "the coat that hangs in your closet belongs on the shoulders of your brother who is naked". Excuse the sexist language; the guy wrote in the fourth century. Really though, this extra stuff takes away from other people with real needs. Without approaching anything like austerity, we can relocate PLENTY of things to a place where they'll be used and appreciated, rather than gathering dust and generally annoying me. Everybody wins.

Questions? Comments?

Tags: activism social justice