Simplify Your Life to Go Green

by Mary Ann Romans | More from this Blogger

While I am not suggesting that you have to go live in the woods with bears and eat tree bark (I am after all using a laptop computer and an Internet connection to post this blog), but I am suggesting that anything you can do to simplify your lifestyle will reduce your footprint on the Earth and make the world a greener place.

There are many different ways to simplify your life. Here are a few suggestions.

Take a look at your current belongings. Are there any that you can reduce and pass on to others who may make better use of them than you do? Only keep those items that get used often and that bring you joy. How many closets, basements, attics and garages are full of things that when it comes right down to it, don't mean much to us at all? Keeping less stuff will set you on a path to consuming less overall. Also, with less stuff, you may need a smaller home, thus reducing your heating costs, cooling costs, landscape impact, etc. Or, you can open up your home to share.

Next, reduce your purchases. Really examine a new purchase before you make it. Can you live without it? Will something else you already have serve in its place? If you really want or need the item, can you find it used instead of new to reduce the impact of the manufacture or cost to ship it, the packaging materials and the disposal of the product? Eliminate impulse purchases as much as possible.

Get out in the world more. Take long walks or jogs instead of driving to the gym. Take in free concerts instead of staying home to watch a video. Invite a friend over for lunch. People who tend to be more social and more in touch with the world tend to require less material belongings. Think about the couch potato versus the hiker.

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Learn more about Mary Ann Romans

Mary Ann Romans is a freelance writer, online content manager, wife and mother of three children. She lives in Pennsylvania in the middle of the woods but close enough to Target and Home Depot.

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