Ethical resolutions for 2007

Greetings and Happy New Year, everyone; I hope your holidays were warm and loving. Billy and I enjoyed seeing family and friends in New York City and Connecticut.

And now here we are in 2007. Resolution time. Yes, it’s cheesy, but any excuse to examine our lives and try to make them a little more ethical is a worthy idea. The key to resolutions seems to be to make them concrete and not too difficult. We can always build on our successes, whereas although we can also build on our failures (“No place to go but up”), we’re usually too depressed.

With that in mind, my first resolution is small indeed. To buy compact fluorescent bulbs. It’s embarrassing to be less environmental than Wal-Mart (see https://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/108/open_lightbulbs.html). Compact fluorescents are a good example of the small but difficult-to-make adjustments that more ethical living requires. I’ve known for many years that I should be buying these things. But when I’m at the store facing the higher prices, my mind fills with rationalizations and memories of poor light quality that are now years out of date. So I write this resolution in public, in the hopes that shame may succeed where good intention has not.

What ethical resolutions have you made to try to be kinder to others, yourself, the planet . . . ?