Wanda Urbanska lives by three rules: (1) pare down; (2) buy sparingly; (3) use what you have. For more tips on simple living, read an excerpt from Urbanska's book Nothing's Too Small to Make a Difference.
from Nothing's Too Small to Make a Difference
By Wanda Urbanksa and Frank Levering
The smallest change is never, in fact, too small. For me, a "click" moment came one day at work in the early 1980s in a city where angels are rumored to hover in the smog. At my desk at the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, I sipped the dregs of yet another cup of coffee in yet another Styrofoam cup and tossed the one-use-only cup into the trash can. CLICK. Forgetting my deadline, I stared at a freeze-frame avalanche of discarded white cups, each used once and thrown away, each ticketed for the landfill.
I stared. And my life changed.
I purchased a travel mug. For the remainder of my time in Los Angeles, and later in my new home n the South, I carried that travel mug everywhere I went — in the car, on trips, to my office, to board meetings, even to church on Sunday.
What difference did that make? Well, by a conservative estimate, figuring that I would have used just one Styrofoam cup a day, over a 20-year period. I would have spared 7,200 Styrofoam cups that dreary trek to the landfill. "Nothing's too small," I told family and friends, "to make a difference."
Not even one Styrofoam cup.
Nothing is indeed too small, especially when you consider the power of numbers, that warm and fuzzy phenomenon of people influencing people, friends talking to friends, people modeling their behavior from what they see of others. This about it: If just one person duplicated my travel-mug conversion, over 20 years, that would collectively account for keeping nearly 15,000 Styrofoam cups out of a landfill. If three more followed suit, over 20 years' time, that would save an additional 22,000 Styrofoam cups. Suddenly, the power of one becomes the power of many, a mighty force that can help turn the tide.
If you're like Frank and me, you get a nagging feeling inside you each time you fill a garbage bag with the throw-away detritus from an office party or a child's birthday celebration, and when you purchase something that you might already own but don't want to take the time to look for (since you have no earthly idea where it is), and when you speed back to the grocery store for a gallon of milk, having already make the same trip twice before that day. You many not realize it, but part of what ails you in the sense that you are not being a good environmental steward.
So, listen to the voice inside you and find your own environmental "click" moment. You may resolve to eat fewer (or no more) frozen dinners, or to never again patronize a fast-food chain because of the mountain of disposables that lies in the wake of a single meal. Or you may decide to never again give a gift just for the sake of giving a gift, or to give gifts only to people who really need or what them. "Never again will I give a 'make-gift,'" a friend recently commented. (A "make-gift" is the equivalent of a "make-work"; it's a gift neither needed nor wanted.")
Here's a strategy that works. If you make a resolution — like I did with my travel mug — don't beat yourself up for backsliding occasionally. If you do that, you're likely to abandon your resolve altogether. Sure, in the 20 years since I officially swore off Styrofoam cups, beverages in Styrofoam have occasionally met my lips. But by and large, I have held to my pledge.
Reprinted by permission of John F. Blair Publisher
