Conscious.

Recently I read an advice column, somewhere that I cannot recall, in which the letter-writer sought help with something that was causing her great anxiety.

She lived a very environmentally-conscious lifestyle, complete with organic foods and eschewing the ownership of an automobile, but couldn’t find an “earth friendly” dishwasher detergent that actually got her plates and cutlery clean when she used it.

She felt absolutely terrible about the chlorine smell coming from the vent on the dishwasher, worried about what it was doing to the world around her, felt like it was sabotaging her efforts to live in a low-impact manner. She was seeking advice from the advice columnist as to how she could remedy this problem.

If I remember correctly, the columnist advised her to get over her anxiety and accept that she could not be absolutely perfect in absolutely every way. S/he noted that washing dishes using a dishwasher used less water than doing it by hand, generally, and that this woman was doing everything else she could to minimize her impact.

Thinking more about this, recently, I started considering the ways in which I’ve changed my life (over a number of years) to be more conscious of my environment, and the other things that I absolutely cannot seem to give up. There are things I’ve managed to minimize (but can’t stop doing) and there are some things I just cannot give up at all no matter how hard I try and no matter how hard I seek alternatives.

The good, not in chronological order:
We’ve switched to eating primarily organic food with a focus on locally-produced. We’ve begun to use more environmentally friendly cleaning products and have, for the most part, phased out the more harmful chemicals (though, in some cases, we’re still trying to use up that old bottle of X or Y rather than simply toss it). We moved closer to Coffee’s work so he could stop commuting a large distance and I sold my SUV to purchase my tiny Toyota Echo 2 door. Our dogs no longer eat commercially-prepared foods and eat local poultry (BARF diet) and vegetables like we do. The lightbulbs we use regularly have been swapped out for CFs and when we’re slowly switching the rest over. We wash our laundry in cold water only, with the exception of bedding and towels – and we use biodegradable detergents. We both dye our hair with vegan-friendly goo. We mow our lawn with a ‘reel’ mower and we don’t use leaf blowers or other weirdo contraptions.

The not-so-good:
We have many computers, always running, in our house. I still own a car that I drive very seldomly (I fill up on gas once every 2 months or thereabouts) when we could possibly live with just one. I buy cotton t-shirts regularly – and not organic cotton. I use papertowels to clean up dog pee because I cannot handle the idea of using my microfiber cloths for THAT. We still consume foods, on occasion, that are not local, not organic and that are shipped from far, far away. Our house is not completely “green” and we are not purchasing bullfrog power. We both love showers and I love deep bubblebaths. We sleep with noise-generating fans and humidifiers and air purifiers running. I subscribe to print magazines rather than the online versions. We waste things. Sometimes I forget to recycle things. (This is just a partial list..)

So I ponder this, and I ponder why it is that I’m unwilling or unable to change some of the negatives. Part of it is financial cost, of course. Part of it is selfishness. Part of it is believing that I do my part in other ways or that the things I don’t change are not the “big” evils. Part of it is the weariness that can come from feeling like everything is a challenge and getting tired of examining the alternatives.

And I think about the woman with her dishwashing detergent angst and I understand her completely. This urge to do everything right, to be okay, to not make a mess on a grand scale – to be accountable for EVERYTHING in the world, in a way.

I have friends who make little to no effort to change their impact. I have other friends who are far-better at being conscious of the world than I could ever hope to be. And all of them seem okay, usually, having made peace with where they stand. Then I think it’s okay – it’s okay for all of us to be imperfect sometimes, in our own ways.