Happy Birthday, You Young Green Thing!

By Tracey Smith

It’s bizarre, yet pleasantly reassuring that the telephone has been ringing a little more of late. It is coming up to my baby’s 3rd birthday…my virtual baby that is, an awareness campaign called National Downshifting Week.

I popped it out with gusto and a deep breath in 2005 - rather like shelling a pea really -from a chilly little cottage, on a pimple on the bottomend of nowhere in rural France and remember pondering at the time, would anything much become of her (she is quite definitely a ’she’ incidentally).

The idea of lacing an actual ‘week’ together came because I’d focused my writing attention on exploring the secrets of downshifting and sustainable living, following my own major downshift in 2002. There was such a lot to uncover and discover and my journey to a simpler, happier life left me brimming with a passion to spread the word about what one could achieve if you ’stepped out of the Rat Race’ and stopped to smell the roses.

International attention was drawn to the project after a few of my articles had been published on the Internet and I found myself in the epicentre of a worldwide craving for information on a bit of ‘back to basics’ living!

I would raise my head from the keyboard to tend to my chickens or pick or plant some fruit or veg, or maybe even just chew the cud with my husband and kids. My grip on the work/life balance was firming up with every passing day and I learned how to say ‘Actually, sorry, but no’; there is so much more to life than chasing the dosh.

The UK has been fuelled by various forms of the media paying lipservice to ‘downshifting’. They portray it as a cure for all ills (which indeed it can be) and that one of the best ways to achieve it is by moving house, counties, even countries! How ridiculous! And what to do for those with no capital allowing such a move? It’s preposterous.

Downshifting isn’t about chasing rainbows over the water. It’s about claiming back little pockets of time and money and investing them elsewhere.

In a nutshell, the more money you spend, the more time you have to be out there earning it and the less time you have to spend with the ones you love.

Embracing living with less is a challenge, but if you approach the concept with a positive mind, the possibilities are endless. Also, by taking the ‘dip your toes in’ method, you get to find your comfort level of downshift and have a far greater chance of long term success.

By making small changes in your own four walls, your whole world could change colour. Speaking of colour, when you do slow life down a pace, you automatically ‘lean towards the green’. A very interesting phenomenon, particularly if you have never been very green minded before.

But look, taking a trip to the local charity shop to drop in a bag of donations, because you are at last ditching the uber-consumer race to please the fashion police, is positive for your local community (it could be a hospice shop and you never know when you are going to need that!), you are recycling, reusing and you might even come away with a bag of second-hand goodies for a snip of a price.

Benefit to the purse and the planet.

So, there you have it. The conception, birth and nappy stage of National Downshifiting Week, in a (soap)nutshell.

The phone is ringing again, more interviews to give, more stuff to say, more people to help on their way, then I’m off downstairs, the kids have just gone to bed and there’s a warm glass of cheap red and the old man to cuddle up to.

The life/work balance….keep it real, make it slow, keep it green.

…

Columnist and broadcaster Tracey Smith has carved a niche with Downshifting and Sustainable Living. She is also the creator of awareness campaign, National Downshifting Week in the UK and USA and was recently confirmed a finalist in Britain’s Eco-Hero Awards, an initiative from ITV’s National News. Tracey specialised in this genre following her own extreme downshift in 2002 and has made it her mission to uncover all the layers and levels of simple living.

Combine this with her passion and genuine enthusiasm for getting people on the right, green track, promoting a true life and work balance and first-hand experience of surviving on limited funds and you have an energetic and realistic advocator for ‘back to basics living’.

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Thanks very much to Tracey for her article. If you are interested in writing a guest post on the EcoSherpa blog, feel free to drop us a line.

Technorati Tags: downshifting, sustainable living, green living, simplifying, stress reduction, healthy living

Written by Bentley on February 28th, 2007 with 1 comment.
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