The mental side of money mistakes: This one’s been kicking around for a few weeks, but it just showed up in our local paper this week. The article offers food for thought about common financial mistakes — and more importantly, why we make them.
And to end the week on the same note with which we began, here are two takes on whether the bits we do are enough.
This post from a 90% reduction leader (working to cut their household consumption on many levels by 90%, to just 10% of what the average American family consumes) doesn’t raise the actual question, but given human nature, many of the people participating (or admiring) their project will believe they have to do it all or nothing: “You mean buying local isn’t enough — I also have to make my own tortillas from home-ground corn?”
For most of us, that simply isn’t practical without giving up some basics (sleep, for example). But it’s important to remember that her life is her life, and yours is yours, and any effort is better than nothing.
This latter point is explained more eloquently by GreenPa. He’s got an elegant metaphor and the laws of physics to back him up.
And No Impact Man this week quoted a New York Times article that addressed the dizzying array of “green” claims.
Hint: A bug zapper isn’t green. Living with the bugs is. DEET … well, I don’t know.
Do what you can, consider your mind, and as they say, keep on truckin’.
[...] Posted on July 2nd, 2007. Sometimes, when I see other bloggers writing about their work to go green, the trend seems to be “extreme green.” Someone with no car scoffs at the idea that someone else would think simply recycling plastic and reusing their bath water makes a lick of difference. Or see Friday’s post about the handmade tortillas. [...]