A tiny house, a farm and the good life. But are you really willing to commit?

Back to the land. Off the grid. Minimalism. Tiny living. Intrigued by any of those words and phrases?

Of course you are. In our modern, fast-paced world of consumerism, we have come to crave respite from our everyday routines, and in the bright age of all-you-could-ever-want media, lifestyle magazines and blogs give it to us.

Who hasn’t flipped through an issue of a magazine on green living with tips on urban farming and thought to themselves, “I want to grow my own food”? Who hasn’t watched a short video about a tiny house and thought to themselves, “I want to live like that”? Who hasn’t read an article on consumerism and thought to themselves, “it’s really time that I minimized”?

We’ve all done it, and we’ll continue to do it. This type of media fuels our aspirations. We all want to be eat and live better, be healthier and wiser, choose a path of intention rather than mindless consumption, so we keep reading, clicking and watching, and for a few brief moments we feel better about ourselves. We feel powerful. We feel in control of our lives. Yes, I too can choose to get rid of most of my wardrobe and commit to only seven articles of clothing!

But the danger lies in the fact that consuming this kind of media is a noncommittal act; few of us take the inspiration and turn it into action.

We are living in a moment where we need change. Actually, we needed it a long time ago, which means that the change we face now is going to have to be radical. We are going to have to live with less. We are going to have to grow some of our own food. We are going to have to change our consumption patterns. Advocating for simplified lifestyles is therefore essential; a reminder that such living is in fact perfectly normal and achievable, not just a fringe activity for the leftist nut jobs.

But the execution is more about glitz and glam than it is reality. I was recently reading a New Yorker profile about the woman behind the magazine Modern Farmer. I  love Modern Farmer. As an urbanite with a ridiculous craving to jump ship and move back to the countryside, it speaks to me. Yes, I want to learn more about goats! But I’d like to think that I am self-aware enough to realize the privilege that I have to read a few articles while drinking my mug of single-origin French press while waiting for my organic chocolate kale cake to bake in the oven. I don’t have to go and put my hands into the dirt, I have a CSA farmer for that. Does this make me enlightened or just full blown bobo?

A farmer told the New Yorker reporter that Modern Farmer was less farm magazine and more of “a fashion magazine for farming.” In fact, Ann Marie Gardner, the founder and editor, herself has described the magazine as “the farming magazine for media professionals.”

Fashion magazines have clothes we’ll never buy, car magazines have cars we’ll never drive, and architecture magazines have homes we’ll never live in. They’re aspirational. But we continue to consume them like starving pigs at a trough.

It’s like when you walk into the cookbook section of a bookstore, all those books with the beautiful pictures of the healthiest food alive. I will eat better! I will make more food! I will learn how to bake bread! But then real life gets in the way, and despite the amount of cooking media – be it print or on television – the hard to swallow reality is that we’re eating worse than ever, and it’s going to take more than just a new cold pressed juice bar to change that.

At their core, aspirations are a good thing; they are what push us to take action. But in a world of easy-to-consume media, we never get to the action part. We click, we share and we move on. I liken it to a friend who once made a comment about people sharing inspirational quotes online. A quote is only inspirational if it actually inspires you to do something. Simply passing it along doesn’t count.

We want to minimize. We want to grow our own food. We want to choose a life of intention. But the risk is that this desire is only skin deep. These lifestyles aren’t glamorous. At times, they’re downright hard. Just ask a farmer. Or someone that actually sold all of their belongings to live out of their van.

Do we aspire to take action or does our action simply go as far as a collection of well shot cabin and tiny house porn on a Pinterest board? My idealistic self would like to believe it’s the former. Because ultimately, we have to believe in change in order to make change. Maybe one day we will in fact have gotten rid of all of the McMansions, and when that day comes, we can surely celebrate.

In the meantime, we have to acknowledge that we’re romanticizing lifestyles while doing nothing to make them a reality. We don’t need to put the blame on the media; we need to put the blame on ourselves. The over glorification is all our own doing.

Sustainability is dirty work; it isn’t just buying a pair of 100 percent hemp yoga pants and carrying around a reusable water bottle. Read a book called “Getting Green Done” if you don’t believe me. We have to take real action, and we should have taken it yesterday.

Let’s not just obsess over these lifestyles, let’s start living them. Not everyone needs to drop everything and become a farmer, but we would do ourselves and our communities a favor if we started acknowledging how essential farmers, and growing food, truly are to our livelihood. We could live without Madison Avenue; we couldn’t live without carrots. Let’s build tiny houses, but not as a second or third home, or as a guest house out the back; lets build them as our only homes. Let’s have a life of less fashion and more substance.

And let’s acknowledge the true impact of our everyday lifestyles – what we eat and what we buy – so that we can start making real change.

Every day we have the chance to do better. It’s time to make sure that we’re not just talking about it, but that we’re actually doing it.

Related on EcoSalon

Minimalist Living: Our Problematic Obsession With Small Spaces

Tiny House Living Goes Waterfront: Think Houseboats

My Tiny House Adventure: Have I Lost My Mind?

Image: Tammy Strobel

The post So You Want to Live in a Tiny House and Be a Farmer? Our Obsession with Lifestyles Most of Us Will Never Commit To appeared first on EcoSalon.

10 good books, from food and public radio essays to photos about living in a van.

A lot of writers (even really good ones) often struggle with the pile of rejection letters from major publishing houses, but in the day and age of the internet, finding a small, independent publisher that’s willing to take on the title, or even branching out and self-publishing is getting easier and easier.

That being said, the market is saturated, and there are certainly as many bad books out there as their are good ones. But if you’re looking to support the small scale, independently minded authors and publishers, here are ten titles that are worth some space on your bookshelf:

1. “Bikeonomics: How Bicycling Can Save the Economy”

Cycling author and activist Elly Blue has written the book that any bike lover has been dreaming of. “Bikeonomics: How Bicycling Can Save the Economy” is essentially the guide to why bikes will save the world. Because if you ever thought that bicycling was just something that made people feel good, think again. It creates jobs, helps the environment and provides opportunities for expanding public space.

For the reader who: wants a good argument the next time someone at a dinner party asks if there are really any good reasons to ride a bicycle. 

2. “Eat Awesome”

If you have ever debated on going vegan, or simple sticking to a more plant-based diet, Paul Jarvis’ “Eat Awesome” should set you off on the right foot. His self-published e-book is a hassle-free, down to earth guide on eating well, and makes a plant-based diet not seem intimidating in the slightest.

For the reader who: always wanted to know how to make cashew cream.

3. “The New American Road Trip Mix Tape”

Thirty-two years old and post-breakup, writer Brendan Leonard is debating on what to do with his life. He sets off to do what many before him have done: go on a journey. A climber, he makes his way across the West, living out of his car, staying on couches, spare beds and many a National Park ground. While “The New American Road Trip Mix Tape” is certainly written by a lover of climbing, even if you’ve never gone near a rock wall you can still find the beauty in this book, because ultimately it’s an exploration of what it means to be human, have relationships and create a meaningful life no necessarily bound by the constrictions of normal society. And yes, there is an actual mix tape.

For the reader who: is dreaming of dropping everything and living simply.

4. “Women on Wheels”

From biking to work to biking with kids, “Women on Wheels” by April Streeter a guidebook intended for women. The pocket book is small enough so you can stash it in your purse or backpack, and ensure that you have all the cycling tips you need no matter where you are.

For the reader who: wants to live a two-wheeled lifestyle but just needed the know-how. 

5. “Home is Where You Park It”

If you have ever drooled over glorious photos of Airstreams, then you need this book. “Home is Where You Park It” is a collection of photos by Foster Huntington. When he himself left his job in 2011 and bought a VW Vanagon, he started meeting travelers that had done the same, and he decided to document them. This book shows some of his favorites, highlighting the true beauty in living simply and taking part in, as Huntington calls it, “van life.”

For the reader who: really is focused on the TINY in “tiny living” and loves cabin porn. 

6. “Choose Yourself”

In a changing world where the economy has tanked and jobs have disappeared, how do you move forward? It’s a new world, and in “Choose Yourself”, James Altucher wants to remind us that in this day and age, success is not about connections or credentials, it’s about you and how much you are willing to believe in yourself to succeed, both inward and outward. Don’t wait for someone else to make you happy, do it yourself, and start doing it today.

For the reader who: needs a kick in the pants to get inspired and move forward. 

7. “APE”

This book gets back to the first paragraph of this article: we live in a time of self-publishing, but how do you make that publishing successful? “Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur” by Guy Kawasaki is essentially a guidebook for how to succeed at self-publishing, not just building a career as an author, but as an entrepreneur. This is no get-rich-quick-scheme, this is a guide to navigating the world of self-publishing and helping you put in the hard work to make yourself successful.

For the reader who: has ideas, wants to write about them and wants their words to be read.

8. “Bouquet”

With limited edition reprints of wine and food books, Eat Drink is certainly a niche publisher, but “Bouquet” is sure to resonate with any bon vivant. It’s the account of G.B. Stern (1890-1973), an author, playwright, and critic, and her four-month tour of vineyards in France in 1926. Beautifully bound and printed on FSC-certified paper, this isn’t just a book, it’s a work of art.

For the reader who: needs a book that’s more impressive than their wine collection. 

9. “All the Dancing Birds”

Winner of the 2013 Independent Publisher Book Awards, “All the Dancing Birds” by Auburn McCanta is a story told from the perspective of a woman suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. A look into dementia in a way that only words can do.

For the reader who: simply needs a good, heart-wrenching book for the reading list. 

10. “Just Three Minutes, Please? Thinking Out Loud on Public Radio”

Why are stories on Public Radio so compelling? Because the people that put them together manage to get a lot of information and emotion into a very short amount of time. “Just Three Minutes, Please? Thinking Out Loud on Public Radio” by Michael Blumenthal is a collection of those kinds of stories, poignant essays, all commissioned by West Virginia Public Radio. To get a message, and often complex messages, across in a matter or minutes and a matter of words is a skill that deserves our respect.

For the reader who: never turns off NPR and spends Sundays on the couch listening to archived “This American Life” episodes. 

Related on EcoSalon

13 Books to Build Your Homesteading Library

14 Feminist Books Someone Should Write

20 Must Read Books for Women

Images: Home is Where You Park It, Semi Rad, Eat Drink

The post 10 Independently Published, Good Books to Put On Your Reading List appeared first on EcoSalon.

Here are some of our favorite quotes to inspire living intentionally and with peace. What’s your favorite?

1. You cannot control the results, only your actions.
-Allan Lokos

2. The art of living does not consist in preserving and clinging to a particular mood of happiness, but in allowing happiness to change its form without being disappointed by the change, for happiness, like a child, must be allowed to grow up.
– Charles Morgan

3. The world is not to be put in order; the world is order, incarnate. It is for us to harmonize with this order.
-Henry Miller

4. The object of living is work, experience, happiness.
-Henry Ford

5. Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart.
-Carl Jung

6. I’ve learned that making a living is not the same thing as making a life.
-Maya Angelou

7. No one ever finds life worth living – one has to make it worth living.
-Winston Churchill

8. Living in a constant chase after gain compels people to expend their spirit to the point of exhaustion.
-Friedrich Nietzsche

9. Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand-and melting like a snowflake…
-Francis Bacon

10. We cannot live pleasantly without living wisely and nobly and righteously.
-Epicurus

11. Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’
-Martin Luther King Jr.

12.Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.
-Brenden Francis

13. Consciousness is only possible through change; change is only possible through movement.
-Aldous Huxley

14. Do everything with a mind that lets go. Do not expect praise or reward.
-Achaan Chah

15. Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.
– Buddha

16. As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.
-Goethe

17. We are never more discontented with others than when we are discontented with ourselves.
-Henri Frederic Arnier

18. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
-Leonardo da Vinci

19. The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
-Henry David Thoreau

20. The point of life is happiness.
-The Dalai Lama

21. It is better to live in peace than in bitterness and strife.
-Confucius

22. We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.
-Thornton Wilder

23. Be happy in the moment – that’s enough. Each moment is all we need – not more.
-Mother Teresa

24. Those who are at war with others are not at peace with themselves.
-William Hazlett

25. Without vision, we perish.
-Proverbs

26. The best way to pay for a lovely moment is to enjoy it.
-Richard Bach

27. You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
-Mary Oliver

28. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.
-Lao Tzu

29. Peace is every step.
-Thich Nhat Hahn

30. Let him that would move the world first move himself.
-Socrates

31. Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.
-Saint Francis de Sales

Image: Rising Damp

The post 31 Quotes on Peaceful and Conscious Living appeared first on EcoSalon.

City girl, fear not: urban gardening is easy, simple, and fire-escape-proof.

What’s new in the EcoSalon Community? Me! It’s Mike Lieberman of Urban Organic Gardener and the Eco-Salon Manscaping feature from earlier in the year.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with my work, I show people with little to no land how to start growing their own food so they can avoid toxic pesticides, eat healthier and not feel limited by their lack of experience and space.

That’s what I’m going to be sharing with you in a 2012 series here on EcoSalon. Since I’m a man of the people, I would love to know what questions or topics you would like to see covered? I’ll do my best to get them answered.

Have a great rest of 2011 and look forward to connecting with more of you in 2012!

Mike Lieberman shows people with little to no land how to start growing their own food so they can avoid toxic pesticides, eat healthier and not feel limited by their lack of experience and space. Catch him on Twitter and Facebook.

Image: LOLren

The post Coming in 2012: Urban Gardener Series with Mike Lieberman appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnWhat will your do with your wild hair?

Every few years I get what’s known in the parlance as a wild hair. These are more than mere hankerings, yens and yearnings. I feel them before I understand them, but by now I know better than to question them. The result of this is always swift, powerful change. I happened to drive to Los Angeles on Saturday in order to get some EcoSalon matters squared away, and halfway down the 5, it happened. I realized the real reason for the trip was something else entirely. Hello, wild hair.

Dinner with pals at The Tasting Kitchen in Venice (lovely branzino, by the way, order it with a Baby Bird cocktail), 7 p.m. Checkpoint: Oh yeah. Something’s going on. Tossing and turning with enervated, inexplicable insomnia, 1 a.m. Checkpoint: I’m awake, already! What? Brunch with a think-different-now, go-get-em-girl musician friend, 11 a.m.: Like it was in the cards all along. And the unexpected, sudden change in the work schedule for the day, 1 p.m.? No surprise at all.

When I lived in Los Angeles, I used to go on runs to a spot on the bluffs of Pacific Palisades. These hills just beyond Temescal High School are lined with a grassy dog park and benches, only a few feet from the edge, the whole of the Pacific Ocean spreading out below. From this vantage point, you can gaze in the distance at Long Beach and Malibu; you can sense the gentle curve of the planet. The sea sparkles some days, and is a mirage of sunlit mist other days. My bench was lower and more secluded than the others, below some wild chapparal on a ledge jutting out from the bluffs. This was my thinking spot for years, a place where I made many important decisions and renewed commitments. And on Sunday, I knew exactly where I belonged.

The last Wild Hair Incident, just over three years ago, resulted in radical change in my life of the external sort. It’s why I’m here talking to you, in fact. This time is different, a kinder, gentler fire under the ass. So, no: I’m not adopting an African baby or marrying a rock star or moving to an ashram. I’m still me, here. But while I’m here, I want to say something to you.

Right now, what do you really want to say to that person? Stop reading and go say it. You know how to say it. It’s the right thing to say. Say it.

Forget this year. Think about this decade. What do you want out of it? Start working backwards right now. Do not wait. We need you.

And just stop.

Stop faxing. Who faxes? If they want you to fax it, refuse. Insist on an email. Nobody needs to be faxing, period, ever. Get a scanner and tell them to try out the new century, they’ll like it.

Tell the market it is not acceptable that they do not have organic dairy products and are still selling conventional strawberries. Just tell them. They will change.

Don’t text. Pick up the phone. Don’t surf, pick up a novel. If it is not about creating, changing, or cramming things of value into that brain of yours, do not do it. If it is not getting you where you want to go, and you know exactly where you want to go, do not give it any thought.

Don’t wait if you already know the right thing. Good men don’t wait and neither do good women. Everything is always in flux, always changing, and waiting or not waiting does not slow the pace of change or make something more right. Start making your decisions quickly; yes or no, in or out. Light your own fire.

How do I know you can do this? Because you’re here, right now, with me. A few weeks ago I was thinking about the EcoSalon audience – yes, I do that – and the thought that twigged me most persistently was how powerful you are. Today’s marketing-savvy consumer can trot out the facts and figures about how women control the dollars as well as any advertiser I know; we’re 80% that, 60% this. You can probably tell me more about what marketers do than they can. Anyone who has seen a commercial or received a promotional offer knows this power implicitly. But do you know it?

AOL just bought The Huffington Post for $315 million. Arianna Huffington is now the president of AOL’s content, and content is their strategy for the foreseeable future. The reason? As put by the perennially rude (and brilliant) Paul Carr on TechCrunch, “Tim Armstrong has just sent to all AOL staffers: ‘The Huffington Post is core to our strategy and our 80:80:80 focus – 80% of domestic spending is done by women, 80% of commerce happens locally and 80% of considered purchases are driven by influencers. The influencer part of the strategy is important and will be potent.’ Or put another way, ‘we bought the Huffington Post because it’s full of important women who buy things’.”

Do you actually know your power? Or are you just saying you do? Elle‘s slogan is “Cherchez La Femme”: Look for the woman. Why? Because women are behind everything. Our motto is “Have a Heart.” Why? Because everything you need, absolutely, ever, to create change, to create a life of meaning, to leave this place better than you found it, is right inside you now.

You’re powerful and you know it and so do I, and I expect you to make good use of it. Consider this your wild hair. Now, what are you going to do?

This is the latest installment in your editor’s new column for 2011, The Insider’s Guide to Life, exploring topics such as media, culture, sex, politics, and style. Cheers and spellcheck!

Image: NeilArmstrong2

The post The Insider’s Guide to Life: The Power. You Have It. appeared first on EcoSalon.

1. Diversify your feedback-collection methods.
Nothing like asking a fifteen year old and a seventy-five year old what they think about you, your business plan, or your last relationship decision.

2. Hit up the experts.
Take your CEO to lunch for a preemptive performance review and some tips on how to gracefully scramble the ladder. Ask a gifted writer what they really think of your pitch letter. Hire a stylist to purge your swollen closet. It may sting, it may be a major relief, but either way, expert opinions will propel you to the top of your game.

3. Work with people who are savvier, speedier and more accomplished than you.
Last year, I advised a mega-stellar online magazine that has the #1 community forum on the ‘net – a super savvy duo who are #1 in their industry and have one of the finest business plans I’ve seen, and a kick-ass marketing forum of some of the best and brightest marketers, motivators, and communicators on earth. With each client, I had to leap further to meet my intuition, dig deeper into the industry, and listen more actively. They made me sweat, spin and soar. I learned some new dance moves.

4. Stand naked in front of a full-length mirror.
Don’t leave until you can say three deeply loving things about your physique, the miracle of your health, and your full-bloom humanity.

5. Dust off the chopping block.
Fire your most irritating client, team member, or energy-abusing friend. You’ll wished you’d done it a long time ago.

6. Kill the chatter.
Turn off the TV. Commute without talk radio. Remove the iPod earbuds. The silence may shatter you. With our addiction to noise and distraction held at bay, our painful beauty and genius has room to surface.

7. Underachieve.
Attention, Type-As and workaholics. You are hereby invited to slack off. For one week, cryogenically freeze your to-do list. (I know, your palms are sweating at the very thought.) Set aside your novel, your knitting project, your non-critical responsibilities. Be late just because you wanted an extra five minutes in the hot shower.

8. As the Dalai Lama says, “Love until it hurts.”
Personally, this would mean volunteering at an old age home. I can hardly bear the wastage and scarcity of dignity that characterize most nursing homes. It slays me. I always leave a total wreck, with renewed appreciation for…everything.

9. Say no.
Only offer the simple explanation that “it just doesn’t feel right.”

10. Say yes.
Just for the hell of it. Whimsy rarely leads to social exile, destruction or doom. Be expansive – and see what unfurls.

Editor’s Note: Danielle LaPorte is the creator of WhiteHotTruth.com, which has been called “the best place on-line for kick-ass spirituality.” She is the author of The Fire Starter Sessions: A Digital Experience for Entrepreneurs, an inspirational speaker, former think tank exec, and news show commentator. You can read all of Danielle’s EcoSalon guest articles here, and find her on Twitter @daniellelaporte.

Image: mahalie

The post Wild Intuition and Teenage Wisdom: 10 Slightly-Terrifying Ways to Become a Better You appeared first on EcoSalon.

Multi-functional furniture like the ottomans with extra storage inside? A media console that houses our tech gadgets and a few rows of books, too? Love it all. But those can hardly compete with the awesomeness that is pigeontail design’s papervore coffee table.

See, this clever contraption serves as paper shredder, coffee table, and conversation piece. It actually “eats” paper as you feed it through the slot at the top and turn the crank, then the colorful paper shreds becomes part of your décor until you’re ready to recycle it.

The papervore is made of bent, powder-coated aluminum for a sleek, modern look. Its hand crank eliminates the need for electricity or unsightly cords (and ensures that you don’t accidentally shred anything important.)

We love the idea of making something practical like a paper shredder into a focal point of the living room, rather than something you hide in a corner until you’re ready to use it. And now that we think about it, you could store or display other items in the clear tray, since it pulls out when you need to remove the paper. Maybe a colorful vase or a stack of books?

The post Papervore Coffee Table: Part Conversation Piece, Part Paper Eater appeared first on EcoSalon.

Hi, I’m Sara and my life is one big, fat, unmitigated episode of relentless luxury.

I can explain.

I came to this realization this morning as I was getting ready for work. Yes, work, where I change the world by surfing the tubes, swapping tweets and drooling over sustainably shiny shoes. The indignities never end. There’s me, at 8 a.m., swirling something shimmering and organic on my eyelids with a very soft, very small brush. Fifteen minutes before that was more trial and tribulation in the kitchen, where I was shivering thanks to my bare feet on the equally bare bamboo floor and was forced to reach for my handmade-by-adorable-developing-world-children-of-legal-working-age, soft wool slippers.

Thankfully, my fair trade French press coffee with local cream warmed me up enough to make my way back to my master bedroom where I reviewed the contents of my closet and pulled on all sorts of also soft, stylish things. Layering can be stressful, so it’s a good thing I’ve got my chosen companion animal milling around my ankles, helpfully mewing moral support. Poor thing, she’s soon to be carted off to the groomer’s for an earth-friendly bath and blow out. Like me, she suffers.

It gets worse, this crashing series of mainly soft things that is my life. Each night, if I don’t have dinner plans, I have to cook dinner. That’s the merciless reward at the end of a long day of work, which required getting up before noon, showering in a big glass shower with all sorts of scrubby, fruity, flowery gels and potions, making myself pretty and fresh, and did I mention making myself pretty?

But wait, there’s more!

These things are not stresses or difficulties at all, and of course that’s my point. This morning, looking into my considerately-lit vanity mirror, I became aware of what I was doing. I mean really aware. Makeup. Hair. Products. Jewelry. Clothes. Music and meows in the background, I saw myself in the mirror. The ridiculous luck of it! I’ll say it again, and believe you me there’s neither guilt nor irony, just sheer, stupid, what. the. fuck: the ridiculous luck of it!

Mornings, my cat, Roo, knows to wake me up if I miss my alarm, sweetly chewing my face until I pop out of bed, scoop her up and “dance” with her for a few minutes as I make the coffee. It’s our routine and she expects it. If we don’t dance, I don’t hear the end of it: the digging-to-China-in-the-litter-box-till-4-a.m. gag is a sure thing. What an odd luxury that is, too, the litter box treatment. Odder still that I have a small housebound animal, a pet, with acres of fur so soft it startles me, who loves nothing more than to hang around me all the time. It’s all she knows. It’s her gig.

So here’s yours truly, far from perfect, being honest: I could really stand to be more grateful more often. We all could. Even when we’re tired and sick; even when the mortgage is late. I’m not even close to the millionth person to say this, but the actual, physical moments of life are so spectacular it boggles. That you have that soft brush to caress your face. That there’s coffee and before that, blankets like clouds. Music and food and movement and sex, and perhaps most of all, bills. (More on that in a moment.)

So here’s what I’m wondering: when did feeling good become such a chore? I did not sign up for that.

If you’ve ever groaned about having to apply your “face”; if you’ve ever sighed at just having to pick up the dry cleaning; if you’ve ever grumbled because you couldn’t afford yet another night out and needed to use those farmers’ market vegetables in a home cooked meal, you and me, my friend, we need an attitude adjustment.

Think about all the things that feel like chores for a lot of us: working out, cooking, showering, getting dressed, putting on makeup, running errands, paying bills, and yes, sex. How many moms have said goodbye to makeup except on days when there’s an appointment in the city? How many couples have let their sex lives dry up? How many singles opt for expensive dinners or cheap, unhealthy takeout over cooking up a bite to eat?

Ugh, I’ve got to work out. Yes, moving the body, such an onerous and unpleasant task. Which means I’ll have to wash my hair. Oh, the delicious smell! The invigorating scratching of fingernails against scalp! Steam-streaked smiley faces on the shower door!

Absolutely exhausting.

It is exhausting. Looking in the mirror here, we’ve all got way too much to do, and not nearly enough time to do it. Something’s wrong with this reflection.

There’s a character in the film Friends With Money, played by Frances McDormand, who struggles with chronic depression. Her compassionate husband is a shampoo tycoon and she can’t be bothered to wash her hair. In one scene, against the sunny backdrop of a Los Angeles farmers’ market, her friend (played by Catherine Keener) asks, kindly but firmly, how many weeks it’s been since she washed her filthy strands. McDormand’s lady grows visibly upset and mutters a helpless defense about it just getting dirty again.

In one of the final scenes in the film, she’s in the bathroom with her husband. They’re talking about life and marriage via shampoo and hair, and she reveals how sad she was to learn from him, early in their marriage, that all shampoos are pretty much the same beneath the scents and special packaging.

For her, and so many of us in one way or another, feeling good – feeling essentially human, in my book – has become a chore. What’s the point? It’s as if a collective depression has settled over our culture, like a pedal that won’t quite let up from the pump of the heart. All the wonderful things that define and enrich our humanity, our aliveness, seem with alarming consistency to be relegated to the Chore category. Whether it’s rouge or riesling, we’ve simply taken what used to be Sins and anointed them as Chores. Work, too, which in its own way feels good and enhances the spirit, is a chore for most of us, a means to an end that’s increasingly meaner.

No wonder going green is a tough sell. For Christ’s sake, we even frame that as a chore. Use less, consume less, sacrifice more. Sounds like a real scream. Nothing like inducing images of misery to get folks behind a cause. (The major marketing thrust of the green movement, that is, the idiocy of it, is a post for another time.)

Existence As Chore is pervasive, all right. Exhibit A: We all have a so-called chore at which we particularly excel in avoiding. For me, it’s not cooking. Cooking is a luxury, never a chore – it quells the wired in me. For me, honey, it’s money.

I thought about that this morning, too, as I twirled the mascara wand. (I’m taking another WTF: embellishing eyelashes.) I’m forever thinking of bills as to-do’s – annoying but necessary tasks to be crossed off until the next month. I suddenly saw that my relationship with money is, um, putting it mildly, dysfunctional. Really, those “bills” are tickets to living. The car insurance isn’t a pain in the butt that leads to something great, it is, in itself, great. I’m serious! By the time I got to the eyeliner I was shaking my head at myself in the mirror. Self, I thought, paying bills should bring you joy.

Yes, joy, and so much joy I can’t stand it. I can get so focused on the payment, whether in the form of the last few seconds of Warrior pose or clicking “Confirm Amount”, I forget that the means themselves are wonderful ends, rich and rewarding in their own right.

I don’t know about the power of positive thinking on this one. Sociological shifts aren’t usually a happy thought or two away. And, hey, maybe my radar is bent and we’re all a bunch of chipper chipmunks after all.

If we’re fine and we’ve got it all figured out, I’m happily the fool. But has anyone stopped to ask when, and for the love of god why, we started considering the basic elements of living, of feeling good, of being human, as chores? If we learned anything from crazy pants Nietzsche, it’s that a culture that accounts for good as bad is a sick one. All these chores are not chores at all. They’re part of life, and they’re the better part. They are luxuries.

Image: Mattia Campo

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There’s green action. Then there’s green soul. You can change your light bulbs, recycle and buy organic. Or you can choose to be green – living with consciousness and integrity – deep in your very core.

The book Most Good, Least Harm explores this difference, which the author, Zoe Weil, dubs MOGO. She urges readers to investigate their actions and impact in order to live and create a life that works for the highest good. In her own words:

This is not a how-to book with prescribed choices for doing the most good and least harm. It is, instead, a call to define for yourself your deepest values and to live accordingly.

But the author also takes into account the conflicts this can cause. For example, she used a computer to write her book and educate about MOGO, but is aware of the toxic chemicals used in computer production. She promotes critical thinking for all of us to address these challenges in our everyday lives and, after analyzing the situation, work for the highest good.

The seven keys to MOGO are:
Live your Epitaph
Pursue Joy through Service
Make Connections and Self-Reflect
Model Your Message and Work for Change
Find and Create Community
Take Responsibility
Strive for Balance

For those who could use some down-to-earth guidance beyond the rhetoric, a helpful questionnaire and action plan is included, plus pages of detailed information and a list of online resources to help you on your way.

Living your epitaph – it puts things in a diffferent perspective, doesn’t it? Clearly, creating a life of the highest integrity requires a great deal of introspection and the changes required can seem intimidating. But the author is not asking for overnight change; rather, she seeks to inspire us to think and act from a higher place and make the changes we feel we need to make, at our own pace and one at a time. MOGO is a process, and it’s one we urgently need.

Author Zoe Weil

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Over the last 12 months, we’ve seen some of the best, worst and most unusual that green architecture has to offer, from shipping container hotels to conference yurts. We’ve seen a host of exciting new ideas brought to the table – and here are a few that particularly won us over.

Bricks and mortar…on water?

It’s been hard to escape the Lilypad this year – thanks to a stunning design, jaw-dropping promotional images and an idea that seems way ahead of its time. A method of living on the two-thirds of our planet’s surface hitherto denied us – and doing so sustainably? Much more appetizing than growing gills, I’m sure we’re agreed.

Except – a nagging doubt. Look at the above picture. The word that springs to my mind isn’t “society” or “community” – it’s “elite”. Are sea-housing projects going to become something that local governments could afford to invest heavily in…or just a series of privately-financed, ultra-exclusive floating Dubais? If sea levels rise catastrophically, would the less wealthy be left stranded?

The Rise of the Truly Fab Prefab

Terraced houses. Entire streets that look exactly the same. Apartment blocks that look like a bureaucrat’s dream Lego set. And all because houses are built before they’re sold.

Let’s imagine something. Let’s say you buy the land first, then go shopping for a house to put on it. It’s a practice only just creeping into the mainstream housing market – and we couldn’t love it more (see here and here). Prefabs all look different, they’re custom built, and they’re testbeds for the cutting edge in new eco-friendly materials. I dream that one day, our children will buy their houses out of a catalogue.

Branching Out and Hanging Around

Tree hugger -“An environmentalist or one who believes trees and all living things should not be cut down or harmed.” In decades past, popularly equated with “nut”. But now, designers are waking up to the potential of living wood – whether it’s affixing human homes within the branches of trees, having trees growing (or “pleaching“) through houses or, most recently, the perfect tree hugger abode. We’re not going to see city-sized Lothloriens or streets looking like Patrick Dougherty sculptures anytime soon…but we’re thinking about it.

Scraping the Sky v2.0

It’s only recently in human history that we’ve starting building upwards on a skyscraping scale. Now these vast structures are becoming self-contained worlds, gathering energy, self-regulating and even growing their own food. So why do they have to be so boxy? They don’t. Take the Superstar (above): a model for a new kind of Chinatown.

Or the amazing pulled-spiderweb shape of the Crystal City, Moscow.

Or this Moon Shaped Skyscraper proposed for Baku, Azerbaijan.

On one level, genius at play – on another, mad as a hatstand. But the wider implication is that skyscraper designers are leaving behind the Giant’s Causeway urban template and borrowing a wider range of shapes from the natural world. More, please.

Buildings That Earn Their Keep

Everything we do around the home expends energy (unless you’re as lazy as I am). We ingest food, it turns into chemical energy, we expend it in mechanical effort. And then, that energy is wasted, usually as heat (friction). Could we divert some of it into powering our homes?

The signs are good. Take the door of the Natuurcafé La Port in Driebergen in the Netherlands – similar to a project undertaken by Fluxxlab. Take the power-generating floors of the Tokyo railway station. It’s not otherworldly technology, although it’ll be years before we see domestic housing using such features as standard. We can’t wait.

Something Sustainable Afoot

Forget polyvinyl flooring – the kind you see poking out of landfills with depressing regularity. Forget synthetic carpets that only really tell you what they’re made of when you singe them, filling the air with a smell you’ll take to your grave. No – we’d rather see acres of cork and bamboo flooring lining the next generation of homes. Green, gorgeous, great potential.

Turfing your Turf

Covering the outside and inside of your house with grass might sound like the work of a deranged golfing fanatic – but it makes sense. Now we’re seeing the concept at work in the street, such as the above fashion store in Seoul, Korea.

Electricity as a Last Resort

As wonderful as the rise of alternate energy is, there’s something we like even more – a home that doesn’t need it. Take the role of sunpipes in casting natural light deep into our homes without the slightest sizzle of power – and how about us rethinking our need to set our homes ablaze in the evenings? Take passive housing. Will the dream house of tomorrow have a dream electricity bill?

Buildings That Make You Sweat

Here in the U.K., obesity has just been labeled “one of the greatest public health threats“. Part of the root cause is lack of exercise – and part of that is surely the rise in modern labor-saving devices. So we applaud designers like Bruce Fowle who want to turn buildings and cities into gentle gyms.

These are our favorites. What are yours? If you’ve found something relevant (or blogged about it), share the link in the comments.

Image credits: Vincent Callebaut Architectures, miniHome, Apartment Therapy, Inhabitat, MAD Ltd, Foster and Partners, Civil Engineering Portal, Globus, Ann Demeulemeester, seeks2dream and Dustin Diaz.

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