Day 8 - Eco-Sabbath

I have reached the final day of No Impact Week. Over the last seven days, I have become more conscious about my consumption of goods, water, food, energy and motorized transportation. The purpose of this final day is to rest as well as reflect upon my journey in creating a smaller impact on the Earth.

Here are my guidelines for Eco-Sabbath day:

• How do you usually spend your day off? Consider how different— if at all— this day will be.

• Plan your day: how do you need to prepare so that you don't use any of your appliances, electronics, motorized transport, or money?

• Stop everything.

• Tie up your week; look back at your grateful lists and count the number of times you listed a consumable item (something that you buy). How did you feel and what did you learn from making this list everyday? Remember the bag of trash you collected last Sunday? Take that bag out and take the other bag of “mistakes” that you've been collecting throughout the week. Empty the contents. Did you create more or less trash over the week?

• Write down five things for which you are grateful.

(Source: No Impact Experiment How To Manual)

First, I laughed out loud at today's first guideline because I usually do not take a day off. In fact, I work everyday of the week on schoolwork. However, I do try to not work as hard on the weekends, if possible. Thus today will be quite different because I planned ahead to not work at all this week. This is partially due to my slightly lighter load of coursework as well.

With the recognition that I will not work today, I have planned ahead as best I can so that I do not need to use appliances, electronics, motorized transport or money. First of all, I cannot completely follow today's instructions because I have to drive back to Wofford this afternoon. But, I have planned out this trip out in advance. I am carpooling with my roommates and driving slower in order to conserve gas. Besides driving, I will not use any of modern conveniences. I plan on relaxing and spending time with my family for the day.

Looking back over this past week, I discovered that only one item that I am grateful for are consumable items. I think this is a sign that what is most important in life is not goods but relationships. This reinforces the message of Sunday and Monday that goods and items, part of the Materials Economy, do not add value to life but consume time, energy and attention. The fact that most of my “grateful” lists include indispensable elements in my life like relationships makes me feel good about myself. For this reason, I feel that, at least on some level, am not too wrapped up in our society's consumerist mindset. For that, I want to give myself a pat on the back.

I also opened up my bag of trash from last week and compared it to my “oops” trash I made during this week. I definitely produced less trash this week. The only items that I ended up placing in the trash can are paper items such as mail and fliers I received. I also acquired a few items of food-related waste as well with wrappers.  I did my best to avoid this, and overall did a great job.  In my opinion, I feel that I had no choice but to acquire the paper trash. I did reuse these items as as scratch paper first which makes me feel more justified in creating this trash.

To close, this past week has been eye-opening. I have gained insight on ways that I am and ways that I am not living in harmony with the environment. With this new-found knowledge, I look forward to adjusting my lifestyle to be a better citizen towards the planet.

Here are my final five things for which I am grateful:

• participating in the No Impact Challenge
• learning from the No Impact Challenge
• my optimism
• the support from my friends and family this past week
• the Facebook post from one of my best friends checking up on me

Thank you for following me the past week on my journey with the No Impact Challenge. I hope that by sharing my thoughts and experiences, you too have also benefited.

Best regards,

Krista