Live Simply
I was listening to Sarah Kennedy on Radio 2 as I drove to work the other morning (horrendously early in the morning, I have to say), and she has a ‘Pause for Thought’ section. For some reason this one really struck a chord with me – the essence of the message was the quote (sorry I can’t remember who it’s by).
“Live simply, that others may simply live”
And it occurred to me that I don’t make enough of an effort to buy things that are environmentally friendly, FairTrade, Organic, Animal friendly and all the rest of it. I make the excuse that I’m a student, and I don’t have the money to pay extra for Fair Trade coffee, or ‘green’ detergents. Well, that’s a pretty poor excuse on my part, because I have money to buy DVDs, make up, go out to the pub occasionally – what would it hurt me to sacrifice some of those things to make sure that the people growing the coffee are paid fairly for what they do?
This prompted me to go to the BUAV (British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection) website, and I was horrified that in the 21st century a lab animal dies every second in the USA. (Slightly better in Britain, but only because we outsource most of our testing IIRC).
*Please note, I’m NOT against medical testing which is important and (mostly) necessary.* When I was a teenager (about 15 years ago) I was terribly concerned about this, and would be extremely careful about whatever I bought, but I’ve been lulled into a false sense of security, and I believed that most cosmetic testing on animals was now banned. But evidently I was wrong.
So, my new resolution is to be much more careful about what I buy, and to have far more concern about the world I live in, and the people and other animals I share it with.
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