College can Change You

All throughout High School I had a fairly sheltered life. I was raised with a set of beliefs and anything counter or different than that was seen as bad. Church = good, tattoos = bad. Throwing things away = normal, composting = strange. Adoption = good, abortion = bad. Meat = life, vegetarian = weird, and we didn’t even speak of vegans. You get the picture. While we weren’t poor we didn’t buy new but we also had a lot of things, stuff, junk.

Since going to college, I have realized that while I had a very narrow mindset, simply because I was raised that way. So I decided to have an open mind and learn as much as possible from as many people as possible and just see what happened. Well, a lot happened, and it didn’t happen all at once. Slowly, over the past year or so I’ve started to see the world differently. My fundamental beliefs are still the same, and I they will never change. I believe the Bible is the inspired word of God and that it is truth. Because of this I also believe that abortion is wrong and so is the LGBTQ+ movement. However, I also know that speaking in hate or in a holier than thou attitude will do absolutely nothing except bring more hate. And there are only two things in the world I hate, 1) the devil and all sin, and 2) hate (which I suppose is counterintuitive, but I can’t love it…maybe I extremely dislike it, idk, hate=bad).

           Through mainly Pinterest I have run across many different movements/lifestyles in the past year. Three of which I researched and have decided to implement into my life to some degree. I do find it funny that some aspects of these three lifestyles conflict and are the opposite of one another and yet I still like elements of each. Those three are Minimalism, Hygge, and Zero waste.

Minimalism/KonMari:

                I first ran across KonMari as a college space saving tip. There is a suggested way to fold clothes which is great for college students because it saves space affording more room for other 
things in the small space of a dorm room. However, as I got deeper into it I realized it was more than a technique to fold clothes. KonMari is a Japanese woman who wanted to live with less and only brings an item into her life if it brings her joy. She wrote an entire book about the method which I listened to while walking around campus sitting in my dorm room being lazy. After listening to her book I started to implement some of her ideas and removed about ¼ of my items from my dorm room
(ask Aly, she lived with the piles of stuff I went through) but I started to feel overwhelmed by the number of items I went through. ‘How can one person need this many things?!?’ I wondered. So I started researching more, finding the minimalist movement. This movement is anti-stuff. A true and full minimalist has less than 100 items that they own. I will never have that few of items. However, that isn’t the point. The point of the movement is to become more productive because of less distractions. To be happier with what you have because you have fewer things. To be debt free because you are no longer buying things you do not need. So over the
summer I went through my things again, donating anything I didn’t need, want, or use to people who would. I don’t need 100 stuffed animals as a 18 year old college student, but many children will love my old stuffed animals and be their best friend (I kept some of my stuffed animals :), I don’t need 20 trinkets with no purpose, so I only kept the few that had special meaning to me (my great-grandma gave me a few before she died) but things that I had only because I thought they were kinda pretty went to goodwill along with anything I wasn’t using, didn’t want, or forgot I even had.

Hygge:

                “A fundamental quality of Danish culture, Hygge cannot be translated using a single word. Rather, it includes many of the pleasures we associate with everyday living-relaxing with friends, enjoying good food, and creating a cozy evening by lighting a candle or two.” ~Random pin from Pinterest

While I already had implemented this in my life to some degree, I didn’t have a word for it, and now I do.  Drinking hot tea while covered in a blanket, surrounded by friends and/or family, while having a relaxing conversation or playing a game is one of my favorite ways to spend an evening. Now, after researching the lifestyle of the Danish people I have more ways and ideas for taking life slowly and enjoying the moment. This lifestyle also encourages collecting fuzzy blankets, warm comfy clothes, and mugs among other things, completely opposite of minimalism.

Zero-Waste:

                This one is the biggie. While most people can get behind a cozy evening, or getting rid of some stuff, almost everyone cringes in horror when this lifestyle is mentioned. While it is completely impossible to live a life completely without waste, many people live a life where they only produce one mason jar of trash every few years. All of which is plastic. Plastic is all around us. From our toothbrushes, to electronics, to almost all packaging, and even the plastic straw in our drink at our favorite restaurant, plastic is everywhere. One of the videos I watched went so far as to say we,

humans, are addicted to it.  We can recycle and compost all we want (also part of the zero-waste lifestyle) but if we still use plastic, we are still producing waste. And the worst type of waste. Most everything else can be reused or composted to make the world a better place, but plastic in landfills will be around for thousands upon thousands of years. Down the road when talking to future generations, I don’t want to say, ‘sorry kids, you will have to figure something else out because I couldn’t give up plastic.’ No, I want to be able to say, ‘I tried my best, I made a difference, and while there is still plastic on this Earth, there is a little less because of me.’ Now I just heard about, researched, and decided to start implementing this in my life in the past 48 hours. Definitely haven’t done much so far. And I might not get as zero-waste as others, but who knows, maybe I will. I know this will be hard, especially living in a dorm room, going to college, and eating in a dining hall (where the food is nasty), but I am going to try. And trying counts, right? I’m not going to throw out any of the plastic I already have, I will use it until I can’t anymore. But I am going to start to make small changes over time, as the items I already have run out, to go plastic free and zero-waste. The first will be not using a straw at every meal in the dining hall like I have for the past two years, taking my Yeti when I go to the Starbucks on campus, and taking my own reusable bag when going to the grocery store. When my tea runs out, I will change to lose. When my plastic water bottle breaks, metal. And so-on and so-forth to hopefully make a small change and make the world a little bit better.

        While I am not trying to get other people to live the same life as me, I wanted to open your eyes to how I have decided to life my life and why and maybe, just maybe someone will learn something from this post they want to implement into their life as well. But please, before doing so research somewhere other than this post. learn as much as you can before deciding if that is how you want to live your life. 

Love God, Love Others, Love Disney, Love Earth,

~Lacey