I have to add to what I wrote last month on How the liberation of living more sustainably feels. In that post, I wrote

To describe what living more sustainably feels like, imagine one morning you walk out from your home and step into a puddle, drenching your feet. Imagine further that you’re in such a hurry that you don’t have time to change so you end up wearing wet socks the entire day.

Living more sustainably is like taking off wet socks that have been making you miserable all day, the awareness of which you tried to repress but you never did. It’s like that but many times stronger. It feels like freedom and liberation.

I left out scope and scale

I left out the scope and scale of the difference. Taking off wet socks feels liberating and surprisingly pleasant if you forgot they were on, but it’s still just physical sensations for your feet, a part of your body.

Unlike taking off wet socks, liberating yourself from the internal conflict of acting against your deepest values is a much greater liberation than the pleasure of dry feet, at least for those of us who don’t like funding the killing of tens of millions of people and the deprivation of hope for a better future.

Living more sustainably is like taking off wet socks for your soul.

Still, even liberating your soul sells the rewards of living more sustainably. You create a brighter future for your children instead of hurting them, lowering their life spans, harming their health, and depriving them of hope. Living more sustainably is like liberating yourself from hurting your children.

• ← Are there people who eat absolutely zero unpackaged food? I think so.
• I wrote a poem: The Poem of the High-Fiber Diet (trigger warning: juvenile humor) →