07/10/2023
PROGRESS NOT ECO-PERFECTION
Have you heard of the term ‘Eco Perfectionism’? Maybe you haven’t but you might understand the concept. Put simply, it’s the idea that you can only take part in the sustainability movement if you’re living an environmentally flawless life.
This idea of eco-perfectionism is often one of the biggest barriers to getting people to take more sustainable steps in their lives. Who wants to make a change to their life, for fear of getting it wrong? For people on social media to tell you just how wrong you are? And how do we encourage people to take part in a movement when people seem so quick to tear people down, rather than build them up?
When we decide we want to try something new, the fear of failure and rejection can often come knocking. This same philosophy can be applied when thinking about climate action or trying to make changes in our life to live more consciously, making 'inaction' sometimes feel like the best option.
The sheer scale of the climate crisis can no doubt leave you feeling overwhelmed. But no individual can solve the climate crisis alone, right? All we can do is choose to live consciously and within our means as best we can, and most importantly try not to take all of the weight of the worlds problems on our shoulders alone.
A few things to remember:
🌍 Sustainability is about nuance and individual circumstance.
🌍 There's no one way to be sustainable.
🌍 We're not born experts.
Eco-perfectionism, and the quest for it, is a sure-fire way to burn out or develop eco-anxiety.
It’s difficult to aim for perfection, and we can put people off our mission if we’re too over-zealous. However, if we aim to be imperfect environmentalists, then we might just encourage more imperfect environmentalists to join our cause. After all, as Anne-Marie Bonneau says – “we don’t need a handful of people doing zero waste perfectly. We need millions of people doing it imperfectly.”
Drop a '💜' below if you agree!
---Let's Get Conscious About Our Consumerism!---
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