There is a common belief that because of the numerous environmental problems we’ve created, we need to feel guilty. We don’t need to feel guilty at all, about this or in life in general.
Guilt does not help you to tackle the problems you face. This holds true with environmental issues, as well as others. To the contrary, I think guilt is one of the LEADING factors stopping us from taking action.
There are practical, obvious reasons to address the environmental problems we face. These problems:
- Shorten our lifespan.
- Decrease our quality of life.
- Harm others (including other species) without true purpose.
- Limit the jobs we have available.
Now, to address these problems, we must just get focused and do things that make more sense. We just need to take proper action.
If we feel guilty about the status of the world today, it doesn’t help us to do so. In fact, for most people, it makes them not want to think about the problems, or, thus, the solutions at all.
As many have said before, problems are really just opportunities. They are opportunities to do things better. To put the above list into different words, by doing things that are more efficient and make more sense, we can:
- Lengthen our average lifespan.
- Increase our quality of life.
- Provide a better life for others, including other species, and increase the biodiversity of the world, making the world more interesting place to live.
- Create more jobs, especially high-paying and healthy jobs.
We don’t need to focus on our failures. We need to focus on our potential and opportunities.
We don’t need to feel guilty and paralyzed by our failures. We need to feel hopeful, and creative, and inspired to create change that helps others (no matter how small it is, every little thing counts).
Photo via oedipusphinx — — — — theJWDban
