The Beginning

Personality traits I am most proud of are: my ability to begin and create things.
Personality traits I am least proud of are: my ability to sustain and finish things.

I have done extensive research on my personality type: ENFP and have discovered: I get distracted and bored easily.
I use distraction as a main tool of operating.
I marinated this thought and uncovered: I enjoy the beginning and learning parts of processes most. I have always been an "all-in / all-out" type of person and I am seeking to revolutionize my habits.

Over the past four years, I have realized my ebb and flow is directly tied to my level of stress and anxiety.

What causes stress and anxiety?
Great question.

For me, there are four main compartments:

1. Unorganized home
2. Unfulfilling work
3. Utilizing energy in arenas that feel reactive versus proactive
4. Choice paralysis - too many choices that result in FOMO (fear of missing out or rather, that my choice was reactive instead of committing/planning in advance)

Why I believe becoming a minimalist | zero waster | vegan will tend to all four compartments that stem stress in my life:

• The process is backwards: the beginning is the most intensive - introducing foreign habits require discipline and planning.

1. Minimalism: I enjoy the idea of having only 30 clothing items in rotation during a specific season.
Minimalism is not about having less, it's about being content with what you have. 

• I have accumulated a ton of "things" - a lot of clutter that have clouded my ability to focus on things I desire to concentrate on. Those things I "had" to have, are now suffocating my living space.
• Minimizing to 30 items equates to less laundry, less cleaning and less clothes lying around being undervalued.
• Confession: I AM AN IMPULSE SHOPPER. Wow, it's true. Bad (sub "any") day = new clothes and emotions to face days later and regret that maybe that dress was not completely necessary.
• After watching The True Cost, I began to realize (much like why being vegan is environmentally important) that a $10 dress or shirt does not actually equate to what it cost to create - the resources at large.

2. Zero waste: ties hand-in-hand with minimalism. 

Zero waste is all about examining habits, waste and what one does with it. 

• My goal is to eliminate ALL plastic in my household.
• Examine the use of chemicals such as bleached toilet paper - why? and carcinogens in cleaning products.
• DIY'ing products I purchase:
1. makeup
2. makeup remover
3. lotions
4. deodorant
5. toothpaste
• Grocery shop the perimeters and bulk sections of the grocery store and support local farmers markets and stores.
• Learning how to compost for my future garden needs.

3. Why vegan: while eating a bacon double cheeseburger, I never think of the Wilbur or the cow that sacrificed their lives in the slaughter house. I think ignorance is bliss and enjoy the moment.

Once finished, a different story is painted. I start feeling guilt about how quick, easy and cheap the whole experience was. I think about how life is so bizarre that we have pet running strollers for dogs and cats, yet we slaughter a variety of land and water animals. How can our ability to connect with certain animals be so engrained as acceptable and others as an exception? Maybe if they all were teacup-sized, then God forbid: save the pigs! 

• I have teetered back and forth with being vegan and most instances when I fell off the wagon had to do with a level of convenience or failure to find alternatives in the environment. 
• It wasn't until I watched Cowspiracy that I realized all the resources, rainforests and habitats for woodland animals that I love, are all being used to toward the demand for meat and agriculture to feed the meat (not the humans that are starving in the world).
• I had become guilt ridden for too long of showers, printers printing too many copies of my marketing collateral and driving too much not realizing that my food choices mattered more.

All in all, this blog is not for me to preach or for you to subscribe to my lifestyle, it is merely presenting information I have gathered to provide informed decisions and tools that influence my habits. It is also a tool for me to reflect and track my journey - not all journeys need to be physical, contrary to my wishes. 

I read recently that if you do not take an active stand toward a conflict, that you are silently supporting the suppressor. 

The thing about the suppressor in this situation is me. The conflict is the impact I am having on the environment, my life and the world.

And I am now taking an active stand against my own blissful ignorance, laziness to make a change and to challenge the "one person doesn't make a difference" mentality.