You say you want the world to be a better place, so what are you doing to make that happen?

I’m talking to the man in the mirror and asking him to make a change. Unfortunately he’s just mimicking everything I do.

I’m a member of Greenpeace, take short showers, try to purchase organic foods that don’t use pesticides and harm the ground water, recycle, and sold my car. Now I ride a bike and the SF trains to and from work.

Expose evil wherever it bares it’s head.

Why are you worried about what I am doing? There feels like a bit of judgmental tang to your question here.

Are we not best focusing on what we feel we can each do ourselves?

Not being judgemental, just asking. But somehow I new some would react defensively, or not answer the question at all.

And I am focusing on myself; I thought that I might learn something new I can do.

Marina, maybe tinyfaery was looking for ideas of other good practices to implement. Or perhaps s/he was just wanting to encourage other people to adopt some good practices themselves.

To answer the tinyfaery’s question, I try to be active in my community by volunteering, voting and participating in community events. I’m on board with reducing, reusing, recycling, composting, and I encourage others to do those things as well. I pick up litter and will carry around items that can be recycled until I’m in a place where I can recycle them. I am a CSA member at a local organic farm. I buy renewable energy from my power company and support habitat rehabilitation efforts. Fortunately I live in a community that makes all of these small steps relatively simple. I don’t say this stuff to toot my own horn; certainly I could do more. I do hope that the answers to this question give fellow Flutherers some food for thought about their own actions.

Ack! I see that tinyfaery just responded to Marina. Sorry!

All i am doing is trying to have a happy family. And in turn just going to try and raise my children to be good people.

Children are our future. The best thing I can do is to raise them to be good citizen’s in society.

i ride my bike and do all of the other stereotypical environmental things (recycle, eat organic, try to buy used stuff when i can) and try to lead by example. and my work is in the environmental field as well.

I use a gas-powered car.

I’m an EMT…its a purely selfish pursuit that benefits others. Once again I quote Ms. Griellet….“I expect to pass this way but once, therefore any kindness I can show, or any good act I can perform, let me not defer nor neglect it…for I do not expect to pass this way again.”- powerful stuff….

Back in the day, I was friends with a kid who didnt take a shower for 4 months because he didnt want to waste the water…..“save some for the whales”.....it was so funny because he would wear like half a bottle of cologne almost daily.

That’s sad :(

he really liked whales….

it was strange because this kid was really a genius, finished high school with perfect grades and started college at 16…...
he would go to the thrift stores and buy material and he made his own clothes….his family had so much money and they were always trying to get him to buy clothes but he wouldnt do it.

Autistic?

Who says I want the world to be a better place? Not being selfish but I’d like to think that I need to overcome my own hurdles first, if I don’t how on earth do I improve the lives of others? Remove the log from your own eye first before trying to remove the dust from your brothers eye. The world is leading it’s course as both mankind and as a natural entity and to change the minds of many others before sorting out my own personal problems seems odd to me.

My next ‘gripe’ so to speak is how do you decide what makes the world a better place? I think that nuclear power should be a major factor in the future, Greenpeace doesn’t think so. Who’s right? Are my opinions wrong? (wait, what, wrong opinions, is that even possible?). The government thinks we should stop using plastic bags entirely when they only account for a tiny percentage of the waste produced in the country.

So who’s making the world better? Those just trying to make a change on behalf of polictical views or those who are actually standing back and realising we have to change a hell of a lot to make any difference at all. Politicians think they are doing right by going to all these discussions like G8 etc. but does it make them right? They’re not right until they do something that actually makes a positive impact and change. And even then you won’t please everyone. Hell, those who don’t want coal/oil/gas are the same people who will complain when a windfarm needs to be built.

Who decides when the world is a ‘better place’. The lives of many western countries were made better when we built loads of power plants and imported a lot of nice goods. But now that China wants to build loads of power plants people are arguing against it. Are we truely making the whole world better, or are we improving it just for ourselves?

Whenver I have a compliment to pay, a Thank You to say and a simple act of kindness to do – I really try to actually do those things. I strongly feel that it is the simple positive individual acts that improve the world the most.

@Tiny- No, he wasn’t autistic…..

To all: Thank you for those who shared their stories with me; its nice to know that people care about other things then their own personal happiness. I really don’t understand why people have taken such issue with this question. I applaud you all, and I am appreciative to you all, for trying to make your own world a better place. Since your world does bump up against mine :)

@cheeb Any idea what became of this kid? I would expect great and innovative ideas from such a person.

@tf I still find the question feels funny when I read it. Its tone is sort of hectoring. Then in the details as you list your achievements, it feels a little self-righteous despite your disclaimer. I get it that such was not your intent, but I really think that is what people are reacting to.

We always see in others, what exists within ourselves. This explains a lot of what goes on here in flutherdom.

“For every animal you don’t eat, I eat two.”

I agree with Skyrail.

When the governments and do-gooders get out of the way, free markets will make the world a better place. Remember, the planet isn’t going anywhere. Us? We’ll see.