Living, Sustainably
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This is the first part of a new series where I’ll attempt to answer the question, “What is Sustainable Living?” In this first installment, we’ll inch into a definition. In future installments, we’ll explain additional nuances that will take that understanding further. The goal here? Give us better language to more effectively communicate sustainability in our own lives and work.
To answer this question, “What is sustainable living?” To answer this question, perhaps I’ll inappropriately start with a slightly different question of fewer words but much greater complexity: what’s living?
Why start here? To talk about sustainability in any way that matters, in my opinion, we have to bridge to the more universal.
Sustainability can’t just be put in the context of a niche interest.
It’s all our interest.
And I’m not saying that with my arms crossed, serving up a side order of shame while I cue up “in the arms of an angel,” but rather, I’m saying that because this is something incredibly limiting to the conversation around sustainability as it is.
We beg people to donate or take action for a cause not remotely close to their day-to-day experience.
When they don’t show interest or act in contrast, we shame them, conclude they don’t “get it,” and convince ourselves that no one cares about the world burning down but us.
The problem isn’t that people don’t care about sustainability. It’s that sustainability isn’t addressed in more universal, accessible ways.
We all care about sustainability.
We all like clean air, clean water, and nutritious, non-toxic food. We all want to be free from the danger of natural disasters and extreme weather. We all enjoy beautiful natural spaces, whether a national park to backpack at or a backyard suitable for grandbabies to play in.
Those of us who appear to not care about these things might just live in privileged enough circumstances to where these things can be taken for granted (I’ll include myself there).
Taking things for granted doesn’t mean you don’t care for them.
We’re all guilty of taking things for granted that we do in our heart of hearts care incredibly for. The reason we feel so bad when a loved one of ours says “We’re taking them for granted,” is that we know our actions haven’t been accurately communicating how much we truly appreciate them.
Taking things we love for granted is, unfortunately, something we do—a part of our human nature we have to reckon with. I almost find it funny that the researched effects of practicing gratitude can be so profound! Just practicing being thankful (as we should) for the things we love about our lives makes a difference in our experience of our lives!
Who woulda thought?
Excuse me one moment while I unashamedly do my gratitude journal for the day…
Put in improper terms, sustainability seems like something for some people, but maybe not everyone.
In a discussion about one of my latest podcast episodes about restoring the world’s dying coral reefs, a creative consultant explained that he should care about the coral reefs, but he doesn’t. Life (making a living, paying a mortgage, raising young children) is already throwing enough at him. He doesn’t want the reefs to die, but he doesn’t have the bandwidth to care enough to do anything about the reefs.
To me, that makes sense.
However, I didn’t conclude he doesn’t care about living sustainably. I know he cares about it, deeply, in fact.
The guy is a father to two young children.
Ask him two different questions:
Can you donate to save the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and take action to do blah, blah, or blah?
Do you want your children (and their children) to drink clean water? Enjoy clean air? Feel safe from natural disasters and extreme weather? Eat non-toxic food? Be able to play outside comfortably and safely?
We’ll get two very different answers.
And so, here we are, starting with “what’s living” to begin with, before addressing its application to sustainability.
Because we are all living, aren’t we? I mean, you’d tell me if you weren’t, wouldn’t you?
Halloween is right around the corner, after all.
Sustainable Living in Human Terms
The Book of Joy features a series of conversations between His Holiness, the Dali Lama, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu on creating lasting happiness. These conversations were part of perhaps what was the last, longest period the two friends spent together as the Archbishop died at the age of 90 in 2021 after a prolonged bout with cancer.
To set the context for why these conversations were important, the Dali Lama made the case that it (happiness, that is) really is what living is all about, anyway.
Douglas Abrams, the author tasked with documenting and adding context to these conversations, recounts the Dali Lama opening their discussions by saying,
“One great question underlies our existence…What is the purpose of life? {And} after much consideration, I believe that the purpose of life is to find happiness.”
The Dali Lama continues to say, “From the moment of birth, every human being wants to discover happiness and avoid suffering. No differences in our culture or our education or our religion affect this. From the very core of our being, we simply desire joy and contentment.”
The Dali Lama concluded this thought by explaining that lasting happiness is created intrinsically. No fame, money, or status, extrinsic factors, will provide you joy. Fleeting happiness, maybe, but nothing with a semblance of permanence.
And so from this, if we agree with the Dali Lama, we can imply that joy is in our “control.” No matter the state of our outside world, we still can find and cultivate joy from within.
While I am partial to this line of thought, that no matter our external circumstances, it’s from within that we derive our experience of the world, external circumstances do make fostering joy, or avoiding suffering for that matter, easier or harder.
Yes, can joy be created 100% intrinsically? I believe so. But can it be more challenging to experience joy given the environment we live in? Yes, 100%. Who do you think I am?!? The fricken’ Dali Lama?!?!
If you or your children are in some way unsafe, be it living in a perpetual state of danger (think: war zones), a perpetual state of lacking nourishment (think: famine), a perpetual state of instability (think: refugee camps) a perpetual state of scarcity (think: poverty), those things will make experiencing joy much more difficult.
This is why, in the U.S., there are indicators that money somewhere in the ballpark of $75,000 - $100,000 as an annual salary is correlated with experiencing differing degrees of happiness.
This relates to what the Dali Lama continued to say, “Sadly, many of the things that undermine our joy and happiness we create ourselves.”
Our inventions become barriers to us and others finding and experiencing lasting joy.
And so, this here is where we arrive back at our original question: what is sustainable living?
Living sustainably is about creating the conditions to make finding and experiencing lasting joy easier for ourselves and humanity.
As we can invent barriers to joy, we also possess the abilities to break those barriers down and alternatively invent that which promotes joy.
Suppose the purpose of living is to find and experience joy. In that case, the purpose of sustainable living is to foster the external circumstances that make finding that joy easier for ourselves and the rest of humanity.
Simply put, where might you find it easier to experience joy? Living next to a beautiful natural landscape or a landfill?
Again, not that it wouldn’t be possible for you to find joy in living with a view of a landfill from your front patio, but it certainly might be more challenging. But I guarantee, if any of us were in that scenario and had the resources to do so, we’d move.
And for good reason. Living next to landfills is not just unattractive but an exceptional danger to human health. Researchers at the University of Colorado found “a 12% increased risk of congenital disabilities in children born to families living within a mile of landfills.”
And it follows that because part of that definition includes the phrase “and humanity,” that means while we might move to live somewhere else, we have some duty to see that others, likewise, don’t have to experience that suffering themselves.
We can’t make anyone find and experience joy, but we certainly can play a part in creating the conditions to make it easier.
Sustainable living is about observing, learning, and pulling levers based on what we’ve learned to make joy more obtainable for us all, now and in the future.
Like the research I already cited above, happiness increases as annual salaries grow up to roughly $75,000 - $100,000 in the United States. As the average salary in the U.S. is $59,428, it seems like we’re making it hard for many people in the U.S. to be happy.
So, what lever do we pull?
Make life more affordable in the U.S.?
Get everyone earning more?
What’s more sustainable?
Living sustainably is not just about whether we do or don’t take our reusable totes to the store; it’s about a lens through which we see the world. It’s about a way of living (not just doing).
Sustainable living is about developing a heuristic for decision-making, becoming attentive to and trusting our intuition, and ensuring that, both individually and collectively, we don’t repeat the same mistakes of the past.
It’s about looking at a direct carbon capture plant and looking at a restored wetland and remembering it’s not just about the carbon.
Which one is legit? Which category of solution, if pursued more aggressively, might make it easier for us and present and future generations to experience joy?
Living sustainably is about seeing that no one problem, solution, or whatever else exists in isolation.
Would you move if a carbon capture plant was built next door?