Heal the world with little effort
Written by: Daan Uijterwaal
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We all want to make a change in the world. Don’t we? Whether that is through helping others, by living a happy life, giving back, charity work, or political work. We have the same desire to help ourselves and those around us. This is a human gift. One we should cherish. Now you might say that there are people out there killing? Or refer back to the different World Wars this planet faced. Those people didn’t want to give back, they only wanted to take for themselves. On the one hand that is completely true. On the other hand, they truly believed that they were doing something right. So how could you blame them? You do know you are doing something right, so the only thing making you different from them is that you haven’t killed someone that stood in your way. So still I believe that we are inherently trying to help others. But there is one distinctive difference between someone who does good for the other and someone who does good to make himself feel good. This is the mindset he or she holds. That is exactly what I wanted to touch upon in this article.
The coke industry
A few weeks back I came across this video of Our Changing Climate. About Coca Cola and their history. How it all started out as a medicine/drug. The inventor of Coke was wounded after the American Civil War and was addicted to morphine. So he wanted to create something that would get him off the morphine yet having the same benefits. It was mainly used as a medicine in those years. It was not until the company was bought by Asa Griggs Candler — Wikipedia that Coke became world-renowned. Right now Coca Cola is the biggest soft drink company in the world. Yet this wasn’t the most shocking part. I already knew the origin story of the coke industry. This is just an amazing success story of someone trying to solve his own problem and marketing it to make money for it. He genuinely wanted to help others. Right now the story has completely shifted the other way.
The thing that shocked me most was the current strain a company like Coca Cola puts on the health of the planet. Now I do not want to go into depth about why they put such a strain on the world. Nor about the drawbacks coke has on your health. I wanted to talk about how we can change this. There are so many big companies on this planet. At some point, these companies change from wanting to do something good for the planet, to making the most amount of money. Even the pharmaceutical industry is built around making money. This is not because of their initial intention, but rather about the current mindset influencing this world. That is success equals money. This mindset is shared all over the internet. I am getting bombarded with ads of people making “quick” money. Living a dream life. Walking around in their flip flops and swimming trousers holding a laptop indicating that they are at work right next to the pool. All around them are girls in bikinis dancing and swimming and cheerfully laughing and jumping. For some reason, after seeing about a dozen of these videos they start to become a bit dull and untrustworthy. As if these girls were hired to act like they were having fun and the laptop they guy was holding wasn’t even on. Kind of a bummer. It would be amazing to make quick money, won’t it?
Well, I would argue to think differently. Back to the Coca-Cola story. They are making billions of dollars each year from their sales. Yet are massively impacting climate health and the health of people. Tapping into clean drinking supplies of people and dumping sewage water into ponds used for farms. All is explained in this video for you. Not only that but their use of single-use plastic is massively growing the pollution in the world. Oceans getting full of these plastic bottles or piles, better said, mountains of plastic bottles in third world countries where people get money for separating the bottles from the other waste. Now I don’t want to say that Coca-Cola should be banned to punished for this. This is not the solution. But what is the solution to them?
The health of the planet > Money
All over the world, there are initiatives brought to life to help the planet recover. Yet these larger companies still continue with their massive drag on the health of the planet. It would be easy to say that we, as normal people, can not do anything about this. We have the easiest change of all, yet we don’t do anything about it. These large companies have the responsibility to keep up their profits so they can keep paying their workers. This makes it hard for these companies to just switch things over. Or at least they use this as a cover-up. It is not until these large companies change as well, that massive impact can be done.
So you have seen the title of this article, now you are wondering how can just our mindsets change something about this situation? Well, it might not do the big damage you are initially thinking of, but over time this will massively impact the world. You see, these people running companies like Coca Cola are so obsessed by making money that they forget what it is truly about. That is living a happy and healthy life, both for ourselves as well as the planet and the people around us. Yet money is seen as this big pedestal we all want. So here is the trick to crumbling these big companies and slowly forcing them to change.
We shouldn’t care so much about money! Our lives are way more than just making money, nor is it getting more beautiful if we make a shit load of it. We just need the bare minimum to support our lives. To do fun stuff, explore the world, and sustain our family. That’s it. We don’t need a massive mansion or three cars in front of the door. This might sound funny, but I would rather spend just a fraction of that cost to drive in a car for just one day just to have the experience. Then pay over a million to own the car and have the responsibility of not crashing it. If you and I can both change our mindset from success = money into the mindset of success = happiness and health we have made a massive leap in the right direction.
Overnight success
After seeing this video I had this conversation with a friend. How we both see the world through a lens of experience and happiness. We value less instead of more. We would rather buy one expensive t-shirt that will last about a year or more, both in quality and in style, then buy 10 shirts that will either perish after washing it twice or lose interest after a few weeks. This is just one of the many changes you can make. You could choose to go walking instead of using a car. You could eat more vegetables instead of meats. Plant more trees or plants in your garden or house. Spent your money on an experience like going on a race track instead of buying an expensive car of about 200 000 euros. These changes might seem small. At first, they might not seem to make any impact on the situation.
But the experience of life is contagious. If you are happy with owning less if you are happily valuing experiences over owning expensive things. If you change and are happy with that change others will want it too. Just like the guy working on the side of the pool with a dozen of girls dancing around. We want that. It looks like fun. Well, I can give you this, spending all that money he used on that clip for something like buying your family or friends a good meal is way more satisfying than sitting there with girls that probably don’t give a shit about you.
The experience of this world is way too beautiful. It would be a waste if we kept on ignoring it. Allowing ourselves to step out of the light by saying that we can’t do anything about it. And rather step into the light. Smile and be happy. Change something each day, that impacts the world for the better. To discard your ego and think about the greater good. You can make a change, at each moment of the day. It isn’t hard. It is rather simple. Just start by watching the video I watched. This is a change as well. You are willing to learn about the situation. That is the first step. Now continue. Walk on. Make a step into the direction of a healing planet. If you keep this goal in mind every step you will take will benefit it. I am sure of that. Value the experience of life. Not the disguise of money that seems to bring you joy.
Just remember that Today You Lived another day to do something!
