World Environment Day: What are you thinking?

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It is World Environment Day and lots of people will be planting trees. Which is a good thing when done thoughtfully – indigenous variety, at a place where you can water them. ‘Thoughtfully’ is the operative word. We realized that a lot can be achieved if we just pause to think.

Some super simple thoughts, that could help make our world, and therefore our life, better:
1.       Do I need this? – world’s resources are mindlessly wasted in producing things that we don’t need. Get more exercise and good food to look better – not more clothes or a bigger car!
2.       Am I going to eat/drink this?- thankfully, a lot of places now penalize you for wasting food. If we all stopped piling our plates with things we won’t eat, or fill our glasses with water we won’t drink, no one would go hungry or thirsty in the world. Also the unnecessary resources used to produce that food, would be saved. So take small amounts, share a dish. It keeps you slim besides saving the world.
3.       Does my body want this? – if my food is processed, travelled 1000s of kms and therefore filled with chemicals (do read ‘ingredients’ when you buy packaged food), my body doesn’t want it. Not to mention the earth damaging indestructible package that it comes in, which further destroys the soil and water. Eat natural and even grow some. It’s fun and makes you look younger.

Corollary- my body also doesn’t need plastic leached vegetables and fruits. So why am I using so much of it? Is it that tough to carry my own bag? It is rather cool actually and you end up looking very intelligent.

4.       Do I need to drive to this? – It gives me great pleasure to listen to conversations in the Metro. Or strike up one with my Uber pool mate. So given a choice between driving through traffic, and worse still, parking, I would any day do public transport or cab pool. Also, the running in metro stations is great exercise.


We spend so much time thinking about useless things and getting wrinkles. From now on, I am only thinking about cool, green stuff which make the air, water, around me better and thereby, my skin. So when the next generation asks ‘what were you thinking’, as they stare at the mess we’ve created, I don’t have to say ‘well, I wasn’t!’.

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