One Reason Why People Are Depressed

I went to a local comedy show tonight. It was a great way to get out some laughs and let the everyday stresses melt away… If you have never been to a comedy show, I suggest going; and if a local place hosts them, become a regular.

Where am I going with this? As a collective whole, I don’t believe we are laughing enough these days. I’m not a scientist, but I do know that the ability to laugh is a fundamental element to happiness. The ability to laugh at jokes, at others, but mostly – at yourself… Because face it, we all do stupid stuff; we all do something laugh-able at least once a day. This leads me to believe that if we can laugh at ourselves, or at the simple things in life – as a collective whole, we might just be a tad bit happier.

Obviously, happiness is much more complicated than that. But lets also admit that even the most complicated aspects of life can be broken down into more simple and easier to understand concepts. Happiness isn’t composed of one ingredient, or two, or three… Happiness is ultimately what we, ourselves, interpret it as. If your sad, depressed, over burdened by life and its many stresses – maybe its time to look at yourself in the mirror and smile, and tell yourself, “today is going to be great.” Start with once a day, stopping to enjoy the little things in life. The first step in life improvement, is improving your mindset; from there, the rest is a little easier.

After changing your mindset, which for most isn’t easy… Then we have the burden of medications (bringing us up and down), vitamins and mineral deficiencies (giving us fatigue and depression), and the overall distraction and disconnectedness of society; which I plan on discussing later.

The main point is, happiness is all around us; and its up to us to decide what we do with it and how we utilize its powers.

Why We Should Work Towards Sustainability

There comes a point, in everyones life, when they need to take a step back and look at what they have done and what they are currently doing. Well that time folks, for everyone, is NOW. Most of us may not realize it but we are at a very critical point in the history of mankind. We can choose to continue doing what we are, and run our environment into the ground; or we can choose to dramatically change the way we think and act. We have the power to begin today, to change the future of our planet – and the future of the human race. All we need to do is come together and think about our existence in a new way… Or in an “old” way, I should say.

Lets develop a perspective that could literally change the fate of mankind(Definitely a link worth visiting.) We have to start making larger strides towards not only renewable and clean energy supplies, but also how to lessen the power demand and decrease the damage we are inflicting on our planet everyday.

Why not do a tax incentive for people to ride their bikes to work as many times a year as possible. Or turn cement parking lots and roads into solar panels that provide clean, renewable energy? (they exist!) Why cant we wrap products in less packing materials, such as plastics and cardboard – to save trees and decrease trash pollution? All of these examples are things that could be done… We just need everyone to start believing that we have a problem and a lot of stuff needs to change. If we don’t convert our over-use to under-use, we will eventually kill ourselves (more than we already are.)

As a reference,
I’ve worked in restaurants since I was 16, and up until recently I never really thought much about how much the restaurant industry contributes to food waste, and waste in general. Everyday I watch pounds and pounds of food go into the trash, many gallons of water being used up (when we are running out of clean water each day that passes by), and only a little effort into recycling 100’s of beer bottles, cardboard boxes, and limitless plastics. I’ve also started to think about how much electricity the building uses everyday, and it makes me think about the other 100’s of restaurants in my town and how many kilo-watts they use daily. When you really think about it, the restaurant and fast food industry are HUGE contributors to everyday pollution and the rapidly changing climate of our planet. I believe there is a need to focus on new ways to generate clean and renewable energy; but I have also recently stumbled upon an idea that I don’t believe many people have ever even given a thought to.

Let me take a step back and talk about the title of this post, in regards to sustainability. If each household worked towards becoming more sustainable, we would easily lessen our dependence on “outside” sources, such as grocery stores and restaurants. Let’s grow our own food, use fires for heat, and turn off the lights whenever we aren’t in a room. Lets spend more time in nature, and less time on electronics- which use a lot of electricity. Lets learn simple things, like unplugging things we aren’t using and composting instead of throwing everything in the trash and ultimately into the ground. Lets reconnect to our roots… Why are we so dependent on others to grow or make food for us? Why has it become the “norm” versus a every-once-and-a-while luxury? I believe our societal view has become so skewed from what it should be… I believe we all need to take a step back and think – is this right? What if zombies took over the world tomorrow, or a disease spread that killed more than half the population? Would we all die because we are ignorant and unable to feed ourselves; would we have the basic survival skills to find food or clean water? Most likely, no.

Yes, if we stopping going to restaurants as often, and cooked our own home grown versus stuff from the grocery store; some, if not most stores would probably go out of business. Many jobs would be lost, and the economy would probably fall victim to the change for a while… But we would find a way to recover. What if some of the people who cooked food for others for a living, started growing their own food and cooking it for their families instead? There are so many ways people could change their daily habits and lessen their effect on the planet; and in turn becoming healthier and happier along the way.

If we could cut out even half the restaurants and stores in our society, we could cut our energy demands dramatically. Our food demands would also lessen, because we would be growing our own and the restaurant industry wouldn’t demand as much produce. These changes could help cut our demand for meat, dairy, and mono cropping of our vegetables and fruits. We could possibly convert those lands used for the mass production of our food back to the forests they initially were. These are just some of the manyyyy ideas I have for ways we could change the future of our planet.

Are these things that could be done over night? Some of them are, some of them aren’t. My main point is, that we need to look at what we are doing and what we need to change. We need to depend less on others and more on ourselves. Let’s CARE about what we do. Let’s care about our bodies, our environment, and the future of our children and grandchildren. Our dependency on society will bite us in the ass, and I feel people are slowly beginning to realize this. We are running out of water, we are poisoning our bodies with the stuff that’s supposed to feed us and keep our bodies running, and we are destroying our planet and eventually it will fight back (as it is already.) We are a virus spreading and overwhelming the planet, and until we realize we all need to change our ways, we will continue to spiral downwards. Love yourself, love your neighbor, love your planet, and change today!

I will have more to say about all this later – these are just few of the thoughts I needed to get out and on “paper.” All I want to know is, whose with me?!