For my first post as CELL’s newest Content Intern, I was given the assignment to write “what sustainability means to me” in approximately 300-500 words. That should be easy enough, I thought, and went ahead and wrote the post all about what sustainability means. I explored the history of the concept of sustainability; I reflected on the time when I didn’t know what it meant; I even consulted the Oxford English Dictionary to get an official source on its definition. But even when it was done, I didn’t really like what I had written.
And then I realized, it was because I hadn’t really answered the question. I may have had an accurate definition of sustainability, but the me part was completely absent.
So I’m starting over.
I’ll summarize my last post by saying this: technically, the definition of sustainability is doing things in such a way that natural systems can continue indefinitely, or not wearing out and using up the resources we have.
But to me, sustainability means much more than that. To me, sustainability is working on this virtual internship, so my carbon footprint doesn’t include a 45 minute commute solo in my car. (Because that is essentially the only option in my rural town without public transportation or safe roads for cyclists.)
To me, sustainability is trying to grow some of my own food in a little garden I worked with my parents to start in our backyard after I came back from my CELL trip to Iceland.
To me, sustainability is having a second job working on a farm, where I support a local farmer who practices sustainable growing and learn how to grow myself.
To me, sustainability is only showering every other day when I’m clean enough and wearing clothes that aren’t too dirty again and again until they are to save on the water use.
To me, sustainability is community.
To me, sustainability is building community by gathering around and playing board games instead spending hours interacting with a cold screen.
To me, sustainability is squishing as many people as possible into a living room to watch a movie we could have all easily watched separately, but saving energy by using only one TV and creating discussion by watching it together.
To me, sustainability is building meals out of whole, seasonal foods and cooking and sharing them with friends.
Picking wild blueberries in Iceland.
To me, sustainability is an ongoing mission to get my parents to remember to recycle and compost.
To me, sustainability is spending less time mindlessly reading my newsfeed and more time reading actual books.
To me, sustainability is exploring farmers markets and learning to create a seasonal diet.
To me, sustainability is learning how to knit.
To me, sustainability is a constant learning curve. It is always looking for new solutions, always asking questions, and always being ready to face the possibility that I may need to overhaul some part of the way I live my life. It is always feeling like the new girl and always feeling like I have no idea what I’m doing, but doing it passionately anyway.
To me, sustainability is CELL.
To me, sustainability is hope in what can seem like overwhelmingly dark times. It is the hope that if we put our hearts and minds to it, we will find solutions, no matter how small we think we and our actions are. It’s the hobbits carrying the ring into the heart of Mordor; or, if you’re not a Lord of the Rings fan, it is as J.R.R. Tolkien says: “Yet such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.”
by Jessica Edington