Sticking to my values was kinda dumb, actually.
For the sake of being clear, I don't mean this is always true. But often I am finding myself finally relenting against what I thought was a hard rule for myself made with the idea that breaking the rule was Wrong. When I broke it, I felt my life get easier and myself wondering why I was so stubborn in the first place. Then again, is choosing the right thing ever easy?
I've broke the rules with Discord; a place I honestly don't like for the monetization efforts it makes and the fact that it has taken over nearly all forums in the internet. I don't like that, and I like forums more, so I didn't use Discord as a result. To be fair, I had tried Discord out before and it's...fine. It's as good as the conversations and communities it has, I suppose. Which is why I'm crawling back with a little bit of shame about it. I know I need to connect with people much more than I usually do, past people in my house, my family, and customer servicing at work. I can't pretend that all the people aren't actually over here and I'm tired of always feeling so distanced from the world. This applies to Reddit to a point, but I have always felt Reddit can be useful and worth going to as long as you've got it modded to hell and back, which I do on my phone. I would even say it's not worth going to if you don't have a specific reason, and just browsing can be a time waster. Youtube gets in the area, and I'm glad to have it modded, but I actually think I've been lying to myself about Youtube not being a total waste of time, when I realize that since I've cut back on using it a lot, I've got more things done and have spent more time actually having fun with my hobbies and resting, instead of, you know, watching someone else do the thing I want to be doing. I still like having the body doubling around, but I need to make sure I'm not just sitting and grazing on some snack or meal while zoned out in front of the screen. It's not much different than tv was back in the day. I like learning, and honestly so much of the internet has all these ways to learn new things, but I keep putting off experiences and interacting with the subject I'm learning about, which makes so much of what I learn barely retained.
Much of what I have previously denounced has been digital, but there's others I've come around a bit more to, also. I used to be very zero waste back in the day before the lockdowns, and even somewhat during. I took a lot of pride in reusing everything I could and it was a lot of work and stress I honestly didn't need back then, and I realize now much of it was to distract myself from how unhappy I was. It was very much my OCD given a free pass to make systems, rituals, and processes where I felt like I was saving the world and becoming someone ideologically pure. I wanted a million potted plants, I wanted a kitchen of like 5 total dishes that I always would use and I would scrub with my perfect zero waste scrubber, I would somehow recycle rain water for my plant collection and I would wash my perfect rustic linens with as little water and eco friendly soap as possible. No meat, no processed food, no packaging, and toilet paper that would go back into the earth nicely in about 5-6 months after use. Everything would have a reusable version of itself that would need to be washed, and washing these would probably have to be done every couple of days by hand with a bamboo scrubber and giant block of soap. The home cleaning products would be made by me using the ingredients in measuring cups, and I would make my own skincare with my own ethically sourced shea butter, vitamin E oil, and cosmetic grade coconut oil. All of this will be happening while I struggle to handle my first couple years of being off my ADHD medication and being the brokest and most overworked I've ever been in my life.
So, okay, the whole zero waste thing never worked out but I still have held on to a lot of parts of it without thinking. One that comes to mind first is how I used to feel awful at the idea of getting fake plants. I mean, what is the point of fake plastic in your home that doesn't even clean the air? I'm seeing now how I can be a very "no fun allowed" sort of practical and it's sabotaged me more than I thought. I also am a serious penny pincher, I don't buy little treats, but I do sometimes fall for something that I see on a very good sale. I have wondered for a bit if perhaps the lack of just giving myself the overpriced coffee once in a while instead of making one I barely touch at home while I'm exhausted would actually keep me from feeling so rabid once I see certain things are in the 70%-90% off range that I only mildly want (I have adhd, so I want everything, all the time, always). I will also use things until they are broken for good, and even when I'm very much uncomfortable and stressed from having to use something that barely works. I'll pass on the stuff that actually works best for me and get the cheap thing. I'll still try to reuse containers that I think are a bit too nice to throw away, and I'll struggle to get a task involving packing or making food because I want to make that process much harder with reusable containers that I have to clean and find, which adds to the task. I do get caught up in the quality of the food, too, because healthy food almost always means cooking. I would even say the prep in making a salad is still on par with the mental load of cooking something. Of course, I could just grab a fruit, cheese, and some walnuts and call it a meal, I guess, which I sometimes do but I can't help but wanting a real meal sometimes even when executive dysfunction says I'm not allowed.
So, I finally make the asshole choices. I become the jerk I'm afraid of being. I buy the microwave meals (you know, the "healthy" ones), I use the ziplock bags and paper plates, I throw away the things I tried to save and say I would make into something better, I buy the fake plants, and I grab the coffee flavored (sometimes green tea flavored) milkshake once in a while, too. I feel better. I actually, honestly, do. I know this must be one of those situations where the old me would be disgusted. Would I have protested myself? I don't hang out with the vegan crust punks any more but I can feel their judgement passing through their tape collections (btw vinyl isn't cool to them anymore, take note trend chasers), their gardens of mostly dead plants and dirt, their thrifted moka pots filled with ethically sourced beans from a coffeeshop they play at on friday nights, and through their posts calling for mutual aid on their social media. And you know what, they're not wrong! They're not wrong to live the way they do, to stick to all those values and make it their lifestyle, to show other people what it looks like to make a change and stick with it; I fully respect that. I respect that so much that for years I pushed aside what was best for me, what I wanted, and what I even needed just to make and live by my own version of that (though a bit cleaner, I was a bit too scared of germs to really cut that part out). After years of fighting, I fully accept that it's just not going to be right for me. I failed! I probably failed myself by trying this stuff in the first place, and not learning what my wants and needs are before pushing myself to be uncomfortable and do the "right thing", whatever that might be. I can tell now how exhausting it all was, and how much I've conditioned myself to ignore my discomfort until it's actually painful. I think it's good to have discipline, but that happens after needs are met. It's easy to tell people to work out, go vegan, go zero waste, all this pure and ethical stuff, but it's harder to actually live that life because you're not going to get the validation you think your are from it, you're just going to be making hard choices that you have to sit with and hope they get easier to make. You're going to be juggling something new and you're unlocking a new hard mode for a lot of usually normal things. All the scolding and finger-wagging in the world isn't going to get the type of people you want to make changes actually change. All that stuff seems to do is get people like me, with a brain wired to obsess over random bullshit to keep themselves from ever working on themselves, to feel incredible guilt for choosing to rest (and thus, no rest really happens...).
I know a lot of this boils down to the fact that I'm one of those people they make all those corny "it's okay to take a break" and "even if all you did today was wake up, you are still valid!" type social media posts that feel like the motivational posters in a dentist's office did back in the day. Not motivated but now I feel a bit more lame than before and I now would like to avoid this sentiment, lol. And yet, perhaps I'm just meant to come out of the arena fighting myself, covered in sweat and blood, saying "I think I'm going to do this the easy way" or "I think I am allowed to reward myself because I know what I just did was very hard and stressful and I want to condition myself to do hard things better" or of course one that's happening now, "I think it's okay if I join Discord communities about the things I like and try to talk with people. Even if I fail at this it's still worth trying to do".
Even if it causes my gut to flip to type it out, I should get more of the fake plants because being around them makes me happy. No special moralizing or whatever you call it, that's it. I like that they are easy to work with and put anywhere I want. I like that they don't die because they aren't alive (scary thing to read out of context). I like them because they (well, when made well) look nice and the work has been a pain in my ass for a while now. I've killed enough plants to earn this. I don't think filling my life with these random selection of harder things has actually served me at all. I don't think the value of those fake plants or whatever else I'm having to cut the corners of is fake at all, either. I can put the corners back at any time if I'm ready to. I am not some kind of random lazy, weak-willed idiot strawman of a person I used to imagine those refusing to make the ethical changes I was making are. I really am way too hard on myself only to have so little goodness to show for it. I have been trying to give myself more compassion and grace, and I'm already seeing myself do more and be more than I thought I could, and given the circumstances of very real problems going on in my life, I think I'm doing great. I have to know I'm doing great. The specter of "but couldn't I be doing more and doing better?" has been stealing a lot of peace and happiness from me in exchange for absolutely nothing. I can't become like my parents are; always working, always wanting, always critical, never thankful and never satisfied. I know they've gotten better over the years but I have to make sure that part of them never touches me anymore, even if it makes me seem like I'm from another planet of burnouts and lazy do-badders (the opposite of do-gooders of course) I'll just have to embrace the discomfort of being so, so far away.
I don't know what else to really say to tie this all together better. But I'm not advocating for anyone to just start using plastic if they never have or make it seem like if you're living your best life as a militant zero-waste minimalist that you're doing something bad. I'm envious, and hope people keep looking up to you. I hope you realize you can help out your peers become like this more if you're kind, understanding, and withhold your judgements. I'm sure I was the asshole version of you because I was doing this all for the wrong reasons, even if I never was one to brag or show off anything I was doing, a lot of that was still fueled by ego. I was getting high off the smug I felt being this Humble Champion of the Worldâ„¢, not really much better than people on instagram showing a zero waste haul or whatever. Another thing is that I was very much on my own with this stuff when I should have had a support system of people who would help me when I was pushing myself way too far just to save money and be the least wasteful. But it's not easy to find those people; people who are knowledgeable about the subject but also care enough to set aside their personal passions for someone else's well being. I'm not even sure I would have accepted help in most forms, if it involved admitting I needed it or if it made me feel too small. I'm a pretty stubbornly independent person, I'm on only child and I certainly act like it, for better or for worse(it's no wonder it takes a lot of work and time to get me out of my NPC mode and actually act like myself around someone). I think the gesture would have stuck with me forever, though. Does this mean maybe more community is the solution for mass adoption of sustainability practices? Not sure! Maybe! Much of what should be done lies in the hands of those in political and financial power. I am not one of those people, but I try to vote and protest and all those things to get those people to actually try, or be held accountable, or even better, someone with better potential elected instead. But that's another talk for another time. Until then, I'm putting myself at the center of my own life for a change. You'll just have to trust that I'm correct when I say I deserve it. Deserve it or not, I'm alive for myself first and it's weird to think otherwise. Sacrifice for the sake of it is kind of a psyop, honestly. Who benefits from how tired and distracted it makes us?
