The Simplifier #25 - A Day of Gratitude
Welcome to The Simplifier, brought to you by…
Contents:
1. A Note From Shawn
2. Our Featured Quote
3. Article: Sustainability—Good for Business, Good for the Environment
4. Your Simplification Tip
5. Simplicity In the News
6. Featured at ProjectSimplify.com
7. Keep Smiling
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1. A Note From Shawn
I love the idea of Thanksgiving as an acknowledged holiday. My personal preference would be to change the name to Day of Gratitude. Well, I’d also like to expand it to cover some 365 or so days a year, but hey, one step at a time.
I know when I’m having a rough day, stopping a negative train of thought can be as easy as shifting my thoughts to gratitude. “I’m so grateful for the opportunity to do my business.” “I’m so grateful for my supportive family.” “I’m so grateful for my good health.” and so on until my mood shifts—and it does!
We truly are so fortunate to have the choices that we do. (All right, too many choices can be a bit overwhelming at times, but that’s a “good” problem to have–and manageable too!) I feel that it is precisely because we are so fortunate that we recognize how much power we have as consumers. We truly do have the ability to have all of our wants and needs satisfied while being responsible stewards of the earth and our surroundings. Hey, is that a soap box coming into the picture? OK, OK. Just trying to start out the holiday season responsibly… :-)
I am so grateful for this opportunity to share the space of simplifying with you. In the spirit of giving thanks, have a wonderful week,
Shawn
2. Our Featured Quote
“It was during those years of looking at all of the complexities of medicine that I began to make a distinction between simplistic, which was not enough, and simple, which was everything it needed to be, but no more.”
-Spencer Johnson
3. Article: Sustainability—Good for Business, Good for the Environment
By Shawn Tuttle
Air pollution-induced asthma.
Diminishing oil reserves.
Territorial disputes over diminishing oil reserves.
Global warming.
Eco-system devastation.
Over-flowing, and leaking landfills…These paint an ugly picture, but they cannot be ignored. They are an integral part of life in the 21st Century.
How did we get here?
The simple answer is that we need things to support our lifestyle. We need electricity, food, clothing, furniture, cars, Windex, coffee cups, shampoo, computers, and on and on.
Companies large and small have come to the rescue: “We’ll satisfy your wants, needs, and desires!” They take raw materials and transform them into useful products. Unfortunately, the practices used to extract raw materials from the earth and process them into sellable products has not been friendly to the environment.
We have a market economy. We keep buying, the companies keep producing.
Is that it? End of story? As long as we continue to eat, clothe ourselves, work, and play we have to accept and allow companies to degrade our environment?
Corporations have long existed with rights of personhood without the responsibility. Can we have Corporations with rights of personhood with responsibility?
YES! It’s called sustainable development, or sustainability, and it’s not a new concept.
What does sustainability mean?
The World Commission on Environment and Development has defined sustainability as that which “meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.
A little more poetically, I’ll summarize the concept as making decisions that effect the world today in such a way as our great-great-great grandchildren will say, “Thank you!” (and mean it!)
Is this do-good concept viable in today’s competitive global market? The people behind the Dow Jones index thinks so. Did you know that Dow Jones Sustainability indexes were launched in 1999?
The good news.
Wouldn’t it be great if global corporations had the mission of “taking nothing from the earth that is not rapidly and naturally renewable, and doing no harm to the biosphere”?
Would you believe that this mission statement comes from Ray Anderson, chairman and founder of a company called Interface, a global leader in the carpet and textile manufacturing industry? Well, believe it!
The Story of Interface
For some 33 years, Interface has made carpet tiles, mostly for commercial applications. The carpet industry has been notoriously bad for the environment and a cause of health problems for installers, and people with chemical sensitivities. (In case you didn’t know, most carpets are made from the same stuff as oil, i.e. petro-chemicals.)
Interface’s client base was represented, in large part, by architects and interior designers, a group typically ahead of the curve in environmental awareness. They wanted to know what Interface was doing for the environment. (In other words, they were applying market pressure.) Anderson, whose policy had been to simply comply with the law and who hadn’t had much concern for the environment, was nonetheless a good businessman, and decided to look into his clients’ request.
The year was 1994 and the company was making about $800 million in revenue. He asked his engineers to determine what had been extracted from the earth to produce that. The answer shocked Anderson: 1.2 billion pounds of raw materials, mostly oil and natural gas. And to top it off, much of that had been incinerated.
He recognized that his company’s practices, and those of all the other companies he knew for that matter, were plundering the earth. (He now calls himself a “recovering plunderer.”)
While he had recently stepped down as CEO, he still had enough clout to change the course of the company he had founded 21 years before. That course was a quest for sustainability.
The company’s first move was to concentrate on reducing waste. The result? $60 million savings in the first 3 years, $300 million to date. These savings have financed the R&D department.
Now, their carpets are made with corn-based polymer and the office panel and upholstery fabrics are made from 100% recycled and/or 100% compostable materials. They are studying the gecko to figure out how to make the carpet stick without glue. They’ve established a program of leasing carpet to their customers. They keep it clean, replace tiles as necessary, and the best part, at the end of the carpets’ life cycle, they reclaim and recycle everything.
Imagine! A company taking responsibility for the lifetime of their product.
This industry leader promotes their MISSION ZERO statement, which is “our promise to eliminate any negative impact our company may have on the environment by the year 2020.”
That’s a tall order from an established company formerly dependent on fossil fuels. To heck with tradition!
Ray Anderson says we are in the dawn of the New Industrial Revolution.
I say we are in the era of Win-Win solutions!!
“The Story of Interface” section above was inspired and fueled by Richard Todd’s article, “The Industrialist“, printed in the November 2006 issue of Inc. magazine.
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Shawn Tuttle is founder of Project Simplify
4. Your Simplification Tip
The Packing List
The Packing List, so simple and yet… Why haven’t I always had one?
I’ve noticed a remarkable difference when packing for a trip if I list out what I want to take ahead of time. When I stopped to think about it, it totally made sense! It’s the difference between Planning Time and Doing Time. A few days before departure, I take quiet time to think through my trip, the different activities and types of events, and make my list accordingly. I created my own list in Excel which I use each trip as a starting point and add or subtract from there.
It turns out that Microsoft Office has a packing list template in the Project Gallery (not all versions of Office may have this). One way to find it: in Microsoft Excel, under the File menu, choose Project Gallery, then the New tab, then the Home Essentials list, then under Travel Tools find Packing List.
Whether you use a template or make your own, you can separate by section relating to different rooms of the house. Update your list based on what you actually took, and even more importantly, add the items that you wish you had brought! Then remember to update your list for the next trip.
And if you tend to be frantic when trying to get out the door for a trip, you may want to create a checklist of Things To Do before leaving. Ex.: check all windows locked, set lighting timer, water plants, etc.
Releasing your mind from trying to remember these things when under pressure provides huge relief!
(See the last article of In the News for even more packing tips.)
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5. In the News
If you know of something in the news that should be featured here, let us know!
Turn holiday chores into cheer (The Wichita Eagle - Kansas)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/wue8k
Articles about curbing the potential holiday madness are inevitable around this time of year…and with good reason. This one has pointers on making some common holiday “chores” enjoyable…
Get organized to enjoy the holidays (The West Linn Tidings - Oregon)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/y4pu39
…and this one has some pretty smart advice on using organization to make some of those chores easier.
Pack smart (Washington Post via Winston-Salem Journal - North Carolina)
URL: http://tinyurl.com/y2q8kf
The most extensive article of tips on packing and traveling we’ve seen in a long time. This author has thought of just about everything…now you don’t have to. :-)
6. Featured at ProjectSimplify.com
The Organization Tips section
The Organization Tips section of our blog is but one of four divisions of our “Tips, Tricks & Ideas” department, but it’s pretty big for a subcategory. It’s actually one of the largest sections of our site, with over 35 entries in all. Many of the tips there have been featured in this newsletter—though a lot of them have only appeared on ProjectSimplify.com.
If you think you may have missed some, you can browse through them all and get caught up. Or if you’re looking for a tip you remember seeing before, or you just really want to start getting serious about organization (or, you want someone else to really get serious about organization)…you get the idea. There are all sorts of reasons to check this section of our site out. :-)
You can find the link for the Organization Tips section (along with its fellow subcategories) by clicking on the “Tips, tricks & ideas” link under Blog Sections in our site’s sidebar.
7. Keep Smiling
The Definition(s) of Happiness
“It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.” But “Happiness is man’s greatest aim in life. Tranquility and rationality are the cornerstones of happiness.” So how do you find it? “Finding happiness is like finding yourself. You don’t find happiness, you make happiness. You choose happiness.” Which makes sense, since “true happiness lies within you. Waste no time and effort searching for peace and contentment and joy in the world outside.”
Why does this matter? “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” And if that’s not enough…”Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment.” Yikes! Luckily, happiness may not be that hard: “You will never be happier than you expect. To change your happiness, change your expectation.” Simple enough.
And don’t worry if you’re confused, either. “To be truly happy and contented, you must let go of what it means to be happy or content.”
Whether you’re trying to decide just what happiness is, or trying to let go of what it means, The Happy Guy has plenty of food for thought on the subject, by opinion leaders ranging from Confucius to Bette Davis, from Helen Keller to Dr. Spock…and from Albert Camus to “Paul from the Netherlands”. His “Definition of happiness” page has dozens of thought-provoking quotes on the subject (including all the ones above).
If you want to try and add to the clarity (or the confusion, depending on your take on it), The Happy Guy will consider your definition for inclusion among those from the great thinkers of our time and times past. Just think—you could be the next “Paul from the Netherlands”, and provide future generations with yet another perspective on that elusive gem, happiness!
Or, you could just browse the page and check out the wisdom of a ton of successful and respected folks throughout history. :-)
Here’s the URL: http://www.thehappyguy.com/definition-of-happiness.html
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Thanks for reading!
Publication Information
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The Simplifier is published by:
Project Simplify
P.O. Box 597
Nevada City, CA 95959
phone: 530.205.5775
web: www.projectsimplify.com
e-mail: (newsletter@projectsimplify.com) newsletter (at) projectsimplify (dot) com
