In the book, Fed Up: Emotional Labor, Women and The Way Forward, Gemma Hartley talks about Emotional Labor and Mental Load. One of the biggest things that has help me come to terms with all of the mental load that I carry is the practice of minimalism. For me, a lot of the tenets of Minimalism is refuting many of the societal norms that have been ingrained in our lives. My mantra some days is to make a decision that removes a thousand decisions after that. This has been crucial to ensure my sanity, but to also reduce the mental load I personally have to carry.
Read moreBook Summary and Notes: The Happy Mind
Happiness is work.
Do you agree or disagree with that statement?
I had the chance to read and review the book The Happy Mind: A Simple Guide to Living a Happier Life Starting Today by Kevin Horsley and Louis Fourie. This book is about the dynamics of what constitute happiness and I think deep down we all know what these are, but may have forgotten these basic and simple rules in our busy lives and our distracted world.
Read moreWhy I Make Personal Commandments Instead of Resolutions
Approach the new year with the resolve to find the new opportunities hidden in each new day. - Michael Josephson
So for years, I made resolutions. I would spend time writing them in nice paper and frame them to sit by my desk or where I could see them everyday. The problem was that my resolutions were very generic. It didn’t have enough substance and they always were the same every year. After reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin a year or two ago, I’ve moved on to making Personal Commandments instead. These are items that I can do everyday to make my daily life just slightly better. Over time, these have compounded as daily habits and have resulted in more meaningful changes than I anticipated. So this year, I want to share my Personal Commandments. The key to this list is that it’s personal to me. It’s what I know and want to do on a daily basis. It’s the things that bring a smile to my face.
Read moreWhat Happened to Monday: Population Control to Save the Earth
Reporter: In the last 50 years we've doubled our population, tripled the amount of food and water we use, and we have quadrupled the use of fossil fuels. Every four days there's a million more people on the planet. How is the world going to cope with this explosion in population?
The premise is that overpopulation has caused a worldwide crisis resulting in a strict, one-child policy. This means that any families with more than one child have to surrender their children to the Child Allocation Bureau. Everyone is monitored and tracked.
Read moreHow to Get Your Parents To Follow A More Eco-Friendly Lifestyle
When we finally settled, my own habits started to clash a little bit with my parents. Of course, if you've been following a few of the articles in this blog, you know I like to do a bunch of crazy projects (hence the blog name) so it wasn't a surprise when the friction started to happen. My parents have been very supported of my new minimalist, eco-friendly, low sugar lifestyle and part of my secret goal was to also try to convert them into my ways. So we didn't end up moving to the West Coast for many reasons, but here's what I've learned about trying to influence my parents to follow a more eco-friendly lifestyle.
Read moreHow I Feel About Thrift Shops and Secondhand Goods
Growing up in the Philippines, we weren't necessarily poor. My parents worked for a multi-national corporation, we had a nice house and we went to private Catholic school. From what I remember, Sundays were usually market days and part of market day is "ukay ukay". Ukay ukay is secondhand clothing from the Western world that make its way to the Philippines. Originally, they were meant as donation from first world to third world countries. At some point, it became a business and clothes. Secondhand clothing is a large part of the economy in third world countries. It has its pluses and minuses. First it supports the creation of micro businesses, second it provides affordable clothing and three it supports reuse. The downsides are it hurts local business sometimes especially those that want to produce and create their own clothing. It also leads to waste as this can sometimes be the last resort for textiles. If no one wants them at this point, it's very rare that they are shipped to another country to be recycled.
Read moreCan We Grow Our Economy and Sustain Our Planet?
In our current system, the worker's life belong not only to the commodity he or she makes, but also increasingly to the garbage graveyard. When manufactured goods are trashed, so too is the labor that went into making them. What other productive, scientific, creative pursuits could we have invested in the time we were making cheap things? Garbage is not just nature, but human labor thrown away in the interest of the circulation of commodities and the extraction of profit.
I just finished reading Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage and I can't help thinking about the above quote. It makes me sad. I'm also struggling to reconcile my Economics and Sustainability brain. As someone who studied Economics in undergrad, economic growth was paramount, but the only way to have economic growth was to produce more. On the other hand, my Sustainability brain is screaming, we can't keep producing more. We don't have enough resources and we are not even recycling resources properly.
Read moreHow to deal with people judging your minimal or zero waste lifestyle
First of call, congrats on your new lifestyle. Whether you are on a minimalist or a zero waste journey, you've made a choice for yourself. Unfortunately, while this new lifestyle is making you happy, others in your close circle may not understand it and may judge and criticize you. Of course, this isn't fair, but as we know, we are the only ones that have control of our thoughts and our actions. It's hard to change other people's minds especially if they are not ready to change.
Read more2018 Bullet Journal Project Tracking
I recently finished The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. The first takeaway action item for me is to write my own Personal Commandments - things that I believe in and will hopefully dictate my actions for the year. Not really realizing it, I have been doing this for years now. I would write the Top 5 Resolutions and put it into a frame. The challenge with a Resolution is sometimes it gets misconstrued as Goals so I am taking a different approach on how to differentiate them and how my Personal Commandments come into play. I'm also experimenting with a bullet journal to see how I can get my thoughts, my to-do lists written in a way that is helpful, manageable and creative.
Read moreTop Apps for Your 2018 New Year's Resolutions
Resolutions require only words. Results require action.
One of the reasons why I started this blog was to keep myself accountable for all of the personal projects I was doing. My goal was to complete a monthly project related to optimal health, the environment, minimalism and so many others. So today, I want to go over the top 8 apps that have allowed me to complete a lot of projects. I hope they will help you live more optimally in the New Year. These apps allow a lot of tracking and make reaching small incremental goals more of a game. The data also encourages you to analyze which action is going well versus not. Without further ado, here are the Top 8 Apps I currently recommend. For less than $50 for the New Year, you can find
Read moreThe Rise of Conscious Capitalism - Ecology and Economy
I've been struggling with the tenets of minimalism, zero waste and conscious capitalism for some time now. Not the practicalities of it, though I have my moments, but the idealism of it. We don't live in a perfect world. We don't live in a circular economy. The term "conscious capitalism" feels like an oxymoron. We live in a very capitalistic society that uses the GDP as the factor for measuring our economic growth. GDP means the creation and consumption of things. How can we be conscious about that and is that something that we can change?
Read moreBook Review - Making the Case for Solitude
I've been doing a lot of mulling regarding over our ever connected world. A few months ago, when I reset my phone, I purposely did not install Facebook because I felt I was constantly checking it. Not in a productive way, but in a way that was there to pass the time. I installed Instagram though and found myself using that more often anyways. The constant pull of the latest updates, the stories, the need to post was getting to me.
I recently picked up Solitude: In Pursuit of a Singular Life in a Crowded World and can definitely relate to the author and I agree with many of his points. Partly for me, I've been struggling to find this balance of Minimalism and Mindfulness.
Read moreHow Zero Waste Practices Builds Your Self Confidence
Most mornings, I walk and listen to Tim Ferriss podcasts. I've been a huge fan of his for awhile and sometimes take on an experiment or two that he suggests. In episode #250, Tim answers questions from his fans. One of the questions asked was "How to Become More Confident?" Tim cites a few experiments with one of them suggesting that you lay on the ground for 30 seconds without saying a thing on a crowded street. Another was asking for a 10% discount on your coffee 2-3 times without any background or explanation. The point was to get you to do something different and unconventional to get over fear. Fear of rejection, fear or standing out, fear of looking stupid or uncool, etc.
I thought about doing this as a self experiment, but the more I thought about it, the more I came to realize that I already do this and in retrospect it has improved my confidence level overall.
Alright, let me explain how this all ties in with zero waste practices.
Read moreBooks That I've Read in 2017
Here are the final list books that I've read this year. Have you read any of these?
Read more5 Ways to Buy Happiness from Happy Money
I recently just finished Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending by Elizabeth Dunn & Michael Norton. I recommend picking it up at your local library. Buying it won’t increase your happiness, but here’s it is on Amazon (affiliate) if you are inclined.
We’ve all heard the saying “Money Can’t Buy Happiness” and based on Happy Money, it actually can as long as you spend it in 5 key areas.
Read moreRead: The Intention Experiment
Cliff notes version of the Intention Experiment. Our thoughts matter. Here are some key supporting statements from the book about the importance of a positive mindset and a targeted intention. The text book definition of intention is "purposeful plan to perform an action, which will lead to a desired outcome" unlike a desire which means simply focusing on an outcome without a purposeful plan to achieve it.
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