Rant

Okay so I am having a bad one today.

Work is a pain in the ass and life is also a pain in the ass. I saw a video yesterday that just makes me a little prouder in having an environmentally conscious wedding.
It kinda sucks cuz you tell people you need to have certain things a certain way and they look at you like a) you’re an idiot b) your some hippie freak or C) both a hippie freak who’s an idiot.
The truth is that while I do many things to try and minimize my carbon footprint I also feel bad for caring.

Yet this is what I don’t understand. You have a kid or two or three and you love them right? SO you do everything possible for them, you buy them every single toy they want and you move mountains to care and protect them BUT you get in your SUV (or gas guzzling car) and drive to the toy stores and you use products that contain god knows what and your feed them pesticides and then you put them to bed in sheet that some 7 year old made while earning pennies. Do we ever stop and think about where our stuff comes from and what someone might have gone through to make them?
A lot of us live our live (including me) not really giving anything a second thought. We don’t care about global warming because it isn’t directly affecting us. We don’t care about child slavery because it’s not out child and we don’t have to buy it from that little child either. We don’t care about world hunger because we have food in our fridge. We don’t care about the kid next door that’s dying of cancer because our child is healthy. So when do you care? When do you invest time or some money into helping those charities? Truth is none of us do.

Would you give up your daily Starbucks to fund a sick child’s wish? Would you trade in your car for a eco-friendly car so that your children may not suffer starvation and the effects of a world that’s run out of time? Would you buy fair trade products so that factories are forced to change illegal practices?

Many of us would not. We all use the great phrase “well one person won’t make a difference”. If I have ever hated a phrase, that one has to be one of my top 3. The truth is that we are a society that waits for something to be trendy to do it. We wait for everyone else to do it so we can too. We don’t want to be different or stand out. We don’t want to sacrifice unless we can be recognized for it. It’s insane to think that we can make a difference if each of us just unplugged the TV (and most household appliances) while we were at work. It doesn’t take much to do it, and it takes 5 seconds to plug it back. We would save $15 a month if we did that. If we bought candles that were soy or beeswax. Bought recycled paper (both for office use and for our home.) If we used canvas bags instead if plastic bags (this I am guilty of and I am trying to use my canvas bags more)

It just kinda sucks that people think you do these things cuz either you have no money or you’re cheap or you’re a crazy tree hugger. The truth is am neither. I am not short on cash, I am not cheap (as being environmentally friendly can sometimes cost more) and I am no tree hugger. I just don’t see how they can tell us we are too oil dependant (words from President Bush) and we continue to turn a blind eye. This is a man that makes billions from us being oil dependant. I think we should all stop thinking about what’s the next material thing I can get my hands on and we should start helping out a bit more. Whether it will happen within our own homes or whether we will begin to give a helping hand to those outside our homes, I think it’s time we all changed.

Agh so that’s my rant. It just really irks me and I hate people sometimes. The reason for my rant is because so many people have made stupid comments as to why I am doing things this way. Why I refuse to pay for a floor for the tent, why I don’t want chair covers, why I hate bows, and it goes on and on and on. I am not broke nor will I go broke planning this LITTLE wedding. I don’t believe that spending 30, 50,100 thousand dollars is my goal. I think a wedding is like any other step you take in life. I think having a baby, buying a house, staying together 25 years, using canvas instead of plastic are way more important things than a wedding. Yes it’s a nice day and you share it with people, but I think that the money people spend on a wedding can be life changing money for most people.