What is Conformity?

At first glance it seems that more than ever in history people today can be who they want to be. We believe in the motto "Be what you want to be!" and "You can do anything you want!" These slogans serve not only as encouragement for individuality, but they constitute also a fundamental part of the American Dream, thinking that each of us is the master of our own destiny and that our choices, efforts, and abilities alone can determine the outcome of our lives. This powerful ideology embraces diversity of any kind and is being promoted in educational institutions, the  media, and the grass-root environment. The recent legal changes granting rights to the LGBT community highlight this point. However, despite the legal achievements and the strong emphasis on individuality and personal choices in this democracy, there seems to be far less room for tolerance, acceptance, and diversity in our real daily lives. The recent strong political polemic against Hispanics, women. and other "minorities" as well as the acute crises in Baton Rouge and Orlando for example illustrate this development further. Despite the changing legislation to protect the rights of individuals, an increasing number of minority groups have become targets of violent attacks all over the country and the current level of political disengagement of the masses and social conformity is extremely worrisome.

Non-conformity is not innate, it has to be taught. I was made aware of this last fall at an elementary school's Halloween parade. Halloween being the holiday, where creative minds can go all out and display their weirdest visions, the sight of hundreds of kids walking in lines in similar or identical store-bought costumes representing movie heroes/heroines was rather sobering. Of the about 600 students in the parade, only about 25 had creative, individual costumes. For many parents it is time constraints and work pressures, that they do not engage with their kids in creating their own costumes from things they already have at home. Some may fear their kids will look unprofessional, if they make their own and may be bullied as a result. They want to save themselves and their kids potential embarrassment by not being creative. For other parents it may be about keeping up appearances and they would not like to admit that they are not perfect and cannot create catalogue-like costumes from scratch. A lot of times, it is the kids who fear to be different and want to wear the exact same costumes as their best friends.

As we all know, it takes courage to stand out, be seen, and make yourself vulnerable as you will be judged by all those who don't dare to be different. Is conformity so widespread these days, because, despite the constant promotion of the ideology of difference, kids don't actually have the chance to practice it? And maybe they also haven't witnessed a lot of non-conformity in action by others? Most people just want to blend in with the crowd. They feel safe by staying invisible, by not developing their own personality or individuality and by not making themselves vulnerable to the judgment of others. Conformity is the innate human desire to adapt to others and mimic the behavior of the group as a form of self-protection. Those who conform do it out of fear of being singled out, fear of being put in the spotlight, of being detected. Non-conformity takes courage and strength.

At times, parents move their kids towards conformity. Despite the promises of being similarly accepted, loved and cherished, should the kids choose to be different, parents often don't embrace diversity themselves and may unconsciously push their kids to be like everyone else. Some parents are worried that their kids might not be accepted by their peers, so they do everything they can to make them conform. They preemptively buy them all the peer-approved outfits and material supplies they allegedly need. Parents are quite aware that the child may be traumatized or bullied if they don't. Some overdo it, overspend, and bridge the economic gap that sets some kids apart from others. However, many parents may also push their kids toward conformity in other, more subtle ways. If adults are different from their neighbors and other peer groups in terms of ethnic, cultural, economic or other terms, they may tend to try to conform in appearances outside the home even stronger. Although most parents have the best intentions for the kids to feel safe and appear to be the same as everyone else, they do not set a good example of how to live and be comfortable with their own diversity. We have to remember that every time we conform out of insecurity or fear, we suspend our fundamental right to be different. Kids learn from observing their parents, teachers, and guardians, but if these fail to be tolerant, don't embrace diversity, lack to show braveness or non-conformity, kids will most likely emulate them, despite all the rhetoric about celebrating diversity.

It is strange that in the liberal democracies of the West, where people theoretically embrace diversity, and legislation has become much more inclusive (granting rights to many new, formerly unrecognized minority groups), individuals from all walks of life prefer to conform to each other to the most possible extent. If we choose to adapt and emulate, we lose the freedom to live lives that display our own individual preferences and beliefs. If we do not raise the current slim level of tolerance toward others and diminish the fear that people experience while living individualistic lives, our world will lose much of its charm that lies in difference. Eventually people will stop considering things beyond the norm and freedoms that we legally have, but are frown upon, will cease to be used. If we want our kids to grow up in a democratic environment, we not only have to teach them about courage, diversity, tolerance toward others, but we also have to continuously set examples for them. They should know that they can only enjoy life to the fullest, if they have the chance to discover their own individuality. This requires civil courage and deep conversations with our kids. There is no easy fix. Parents have to show that they are not afraid to stand out, that they are willing to help those who are being bullied and defend all kinds of minorities. Especially in this political climate of fear and finger-pointing, where minorities are constantly being targeted, civil courage will be needed to save our individual democratic rights and pass them on to future generations.

What is Curiosity?

Curiosity sets us apart from other species. It allows us to develop our intellect and invent new tools that make our life easier. Curiosity is not only the engine for material progress, but also closely correlated to individual mental and physical health, intelligence, happiness, and positive outlook on life in general. Curiosity in us is innate and can anchor us in the present while we are deeply involved in investigating, researching, and exploring. It makes us feel more awake, more alive, more passionate and has a rejuvenating effect. Considering all these positive qualities that accompany curiosity, one can only wonder why we don't cultivate and harvest its positive energy much more. It seems that with age, curiosity is slipping away and with it a lot of fun, passion, empathy, happiness and a special connection to the world that we live in. Wouldn't our lives be a lot more interesting, if we regularly dared to try new things, never stopped challenging ourselves to learn new skills and pick up new interests? Wouldn't we feel much happier in our neighborhoods, communities, and towns, if people were a little more curious about their surroundings, each other, the world, big and small ideas, and all the infinite possibilities in our communities that we currently leave unexplored?

In babies and toddlers curiosity is the driving force. They rely on it to learn all skills necessary to survive in their habitat. Constant observation helps them to figure out how things work. Little children touch things to understand what they are, what they are made of, what they can do, and what they can be useful for. They play around with them in as many different ways as possible. Every object is worth discovering and exploring in the same meticulous way, because it will help with comparing all new things to these first ones and will allow them to make sense of their world. Parents and caregivers know that the acquisition of knowledge and curiosity are intrinsically connected and encourage their little ones actively to explore and discover. But as they master the basic skills of walking, talking, eating, and understanding of how human interaction works, they become integrated into a broader learning system, in which curiosity gradually becomes marginalized.

Once institutionalized learning takes place, children remain encouraged to explore, but in much more directed ways. As they gradually become part of institutionalized learning, students' curiosity is just one aspect among many that dictate the curriculum and prepare the students for important standardized assessments. Due to teachers' performance pressures, kids' curiosity often becomes discouraged as it can slow down or even disrupt teaching. Institutionalized learning at times backs away from hands-on investigation in favor of a reproduction of knowledge in pre-selected, pre-approved packages. As a well-known study of divergent thinking of 2011 showed, schooling actually has a negative effect on creative thinking and creativity in kids. One specific experiment asked Kindergarteners to come up with as many uses for a paper clip as possible and the average 5-year old could think of 200. When the experiment was repeated with kids a few years older, the results were sobering: on average these older kids were only able to imagine 5 uses for a paper clip in contrast to 200 imagined by 5-year-olds.

As adults with steady jobs and more static lives, curiosity and imagination recede even further. Unless we perform a diverse set of tasks or have jobs in creative fields like research, design or the arts, we generally do not have many chances to follow our curiosity or interests. Considering that 80% of adults in the U.S. admitted to "hating their jobs" in 2010 and spent endless hours on tasks without being positively emotionally engaged, they live a rather monotonous lives. While some individuals may manage well accepting this dull outlook thinking that it is part of being an adult, the majority of us becomes discontent, bored, and frustrated not only with work-life, but also with themselves, their relations, and their surroundings. Without taking the extra time or effort to make our lives more interesting by doing something different and incorporating curiosity into the little stretches of free time that we do have, we tend to become lazy and depressed. We accept the social expectations that adulthood means lots of responsibilities and obligations and don't expect much excitement.

Last year, research confirmed that the brain of curious individuals worked much better and enhanced the individual's ability to learn information easier than those of the less curious people. They found that when curiosity is piqued, new information can be best learned and turned it into useful facts. It will also be memorized for much more extended period of time than for those who are less curious. In addition, the investigators found that when curiosity is stimulated, there is increased activity in the brain circuit related to reward. When curiosity motivated learning, there was increased activity in the hippocampus, a brain region that is important for forming new memories, as well as increased interactions between the hippocampus and the reward circuit. So curiosity recruits the reward system, and interactions between the reward system and the hippocampus seem to put the brain in a state in which you are more likely to learn and retain information, even if that information is not of particular interest to you. This could be useful information in the classroom or the workplace, when learning what might be considered boring material could be enhanced if teachers or managers are able to harness the power of curiosity about something they are naturally motivated to learn.

Big market leaders like Google or Apple have long integrated this knowledge into their companies. They have elevated the role of curiosity, imagination, and creativity and allowed employee's to have a more flexible work schedule which leads to more free mental space that in turn encourages and embraces different, innovative ways of thinking that can lead to great inventions. Google for example has allowed employees to spend 20% of their work time on projects of personal interest. Giving employees control over their time and how they approach a project, the management gives up control, but gains loyalty, passion, and furthers the talent of their employees, who in turn engage with the project on a much deeper level than they otherwise would. Google understands not only that unstructured time, inspiring surroundings, and minimal supervision are necessary for more creative output, but also that monotony poses a main obstacles to innovation. In the last couple of years, many other business leaders have confirmed that the specific skills that the job market will require in the near future cannot be known for sure at this point, but the qualities that many companies will look for are creativity, adaptability, and critical thinking skills, which are most likely found in humanities or art majors.

Despite the popularity and wide distribution of these findings (also to be found in some great TED talks), the current trend unfortunately continues to favor the opposite. At universities more and more funding has been cut for the arts and humanities, where the instructional focus lies on the development of critical and free thinking skills, as well as creativity. Japan has taken this to the extreme as the recent announcement by Minister of Education Hakubun Shimomura shows in which he said that all Japanese universities will stop accept entering students into programs of social sciences, law, and humanities. In the U.S. and many other nations (like Britain) the government are partial to STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) over the arts, social sciences, and humanities, which resulted in massive budget cuts for the latter. While this decision is clearly driven by economic concerns, it may have a much larger impact. Not only will it further pre-select areas of interest to humanity and thus limit the direction in which curiosity and imagination are allowed to operate, but it will ultimately also create a world in which even more people favor a calculable reality. If the broad majority of higher educated people worked in STEM fields, it would alter our world significantly, but not in a positive way. In the end, it would be a less colorful and far less diverse place, where most of our interests center around similar things. It would become a static and grim world of decreasing tolerance for alternative ways of thinking, being, and approaching life.

The power of curiosity, which demands an open mind and is inherently connected to hope, can transform us and should not be sidelined in our lives no matter our age. Life is an adventure and can remain such in all stages of life, if we stay curious. If we dare to look at the world beyond our daily framework, we can only benefit from it. Acquiring new skills, challenging ourselves to learn, we view life from different perspectives, which helps us to remain energized and awake. When exposed to the new, we --like children-- reevaluate the old, the traditional and have the chance to create something new. Not only does it add to our basic sum of experiences, but it also allows us to rethink our own identity. This may be especially valuable in an age when many people are unhappy with their jobs and we are regularly confronted with horrible violence committed by individuals who struggle to find a place in this world. Engaging people, arousing and channeling their curiosity may create a way to transform their frustrations and anger into something positive and lead them to reconnect with their peers and their communities.

What is Vanity?

These days, it seems that a big part of our lives revolves around vanity. We are constantly connected to social media sources, where we share many instances or sequences of our lives. We keep others informed about what we are doing, with whom, and how much fun that was, etc by posting regular selfies. Last year, more than one million selfies are taken per day. The majority of them were shot by individuals in the age range from 18-24. So even mundane situations, like picking up fruit in a grocery store, buying a latte in a coffee shop or finding a rare creature while working in the yard, will be documented, shared, commented on. Since everyone desires positive feedback from their connections, friends or followers, we begin to imagine our next post long ahead of time: the situation/event that would lend itself; the interesting backdrop; the facial expression that would work with it; and not to forget a witty caption. Then, while posing and clicking the picture of ourselves, we use various slightly different angles to get the best shot, which we carefully select afterwards. And even after deciding which one to use, more than a third of selfie posters admitted to changing/editing their self portraits in some ways before publishing it on social media.

Vanity has become a constant companion and in our thoughts that creates and highly censors the self-image that we present to the world. As people engaged more and more with social media, individuals become their own brands intending to appeal to the broader audience. Approval ratings can be measured in likes, new friend requests, new followers, new connections or new additions to one's circles. While the spheres of the public and private become more blurry as the number of narcissistic individuals increases and life begins to revolve more and more around the intended effect of a post, some real life activities become far less spontaneous and more planned out than many of us would care to admit. The current narcissistic trend of constantly double-checking oneself reminds us of the Greek myth of Narcissus who drowned because he could not take his eyes off his own reflection in the water. Many of today's young adults who over-engage with social media experience similar psychological and social problems that may seem unexpected judging from the happy and confident images that they post. Their own vanity can isolate them, like Narcissus, and take them away from society. For the broader community this leads to a set of other, much deeper lying questions about young adult's identity: What is the real reason that leads them to crave the constant desire or even need of approval and specifically the approval of people they mostly don't even know or don't know well? Why and how have superficial perceptions become so important that they can trump other values that have a much more important effect on our communities?

The generation of my late grandmother would find this trend to document oneself tasteless and misplaced. She and her contemporaries would have wondered who would feel comfortable or rather important enough to record themselves throughout the day. She would have found this absurd. She would have wondered how anybody could think that their daily life could be of interest to others to such an extent that they document it, unless they people of interest in public life. Humbleness and willingness to work hard were the characteristics that people of her time and her context (rural Western Europe) adored. They believed that one should always do good, but not talk about it, because bragging was simply taboo. Showing or appearing arrogant or boastful were unforgivable sins. But individuals of her time made the utmost effort to appear appropriately dressed, even in the harshest economic times. They wanted to be regarded as respectable people in their community and display and guard their good reputation.

The generation of my parents who grew up in the postwar years experienced very harsh times in which hunger, losing loved ones, and poverty unfortunately were the norm. Interestingly enough, though, despite all the hardship vanity still survived and, as I was told, some teenage girls were so concerned with fashion trends that they slept with their hair in curlers made out of toilet paper rolls. Due to economics, fashion was simple those days in Western Europe. After the war, it consisted of patchwork styles (as seen on the skirt on the right) and of re-purposing military uniform jackets, because that was what was available. Since many men were gone after the war, women competed over the few that were there (and not wounded) and were extra careful with their bodies and looks, but life certainly did not revolve around vanity, but much more substantial things: money to buy the basic necessities, education, work, and rebuilding life in a very different way than the previous generations.

Today, vanity and selfies are not at all frowned upon, but instead they are acceptable, expected, and even encouraged among peers. And yes, there is social pressure to post more selfies, so that all the connections can get a better picture about what is going on in someone's life. This is a competitious enterprise and full of judgments. You don't only want to look as good as possible, but hopefully much even better than some of your connections, friends or ""frenemies." You want to come across as more fashionable, skinnier, outgoing, and brave. You also want to have the more interesting/diverse backdrop for your selfies. With the invention of the selfie-stick even better self-documentation can be achieved and a more realistic images of your surroundings can be captured while taking a self-portrait. Unfortunately, the competition over the most exclusive shots has led to a rising number of death in 2014. Not only do many people risk their lives by taking selfies hanging from walls or jumping off buildings, but also being in close proximity to dangerous animals or standing on the tip of the highest skyscrapers. It appears to be a highly disproportionate risk for the possibility of a great photo of oneself. Still, for many young people the possibility of short-lived fame on social media may justify it. This not only goes to show that we humans or a large portion of our species are not at all as intelligent as we could be. Self-protection and securing one's own survival should be highest on the list of priorities.

Taking selfies can not only leads to physical danger, injuries, and possible death, but also and more importantly to deep psychological problems. Narcissism does not only encompass revolving around yourself and needing constant reaffirmation of ones own importance from outside sources, but it is above all the result of a deep-rooted inner insecurity. There is the sad, unimaginable story of the British young man Danny Bowman (19), a so-called "selfie addict" who was aiming for a perfect selfie and attempted hundreds of times per day, but was never satisfied with the outcome. He skipped school and stayed inside his house for six month while he kept on trying. He lost a lot of weight and his whole life tilted out control with an attempted suicide attempt. It is taking long-winded treatment to make it possible for him to rejoin society and participate in normal life. This shows that the mental problems that accompany selfie addicts are serious and should not be underestimated. According to a medical professional selfie-takers have an "extremely high suicide rate."

Studies have shown though, that most of selfies are taken by young women. On the one hand it has to do with the stereotypes about women. Women are always expected to look gorgeous, even if they happen to have stressful lives (e.g. full-time jobs and a family to take care of) with little time to work out or focus on their eating habits. On the other hand, it has been argued that this is a way for women to reclaim their own bodies. Taking selfies, women are in total control of their own pictures and decide on the concrete composition of the image. This has been understood as a form of empowerment. If this is actually a way of cutting the chains of expectations that surround women is clearly debatable. In many ways, it seems to feed into the old stereotypes that women are only seen and not heard. As long as this doesn't lead to any further action that is relevant for a broader section of society, in my opinion, this has little to do with empowerment. The time spent on rotating around oneself and finding the perfect image of oneself could be spent with many more useful activities that would change the world (and the image and perception of women) in a more positive way. Maybe vanity and narcissism are used as a way of escaping reality and ignoring the larger problems that need to be addressed (like poverty, education, racism, violence, etc.)? Maybe some young people can avoid the world and their responsibility in it as long as they don't admit that they are actually part of it. If they live in vanity and rotate around themselves, they identify more with their online world than the real world, which leads to a whole new set of problems.

As parents, we have to wonder how we can protect our children from this growing trend of vanity. We have to make sure that we raise our kids with enough confidence that they don't need constant reassurance from third parties, that they grow up with a secure belief in themselves and the community around them. We have to let them know that as humans we have to accept ourselves and our bodies and that those images of seemingly perfect people that flood the media are highly edited and unnatural. We have to make sure that they are grounded in the real world, so that they grow up with a feeling of belonging. This will allow them to feel empathy and become active for people who need them and causes that they find worthy. We have to teach them that vanity is short-lived and the important things in life take time and a lot of effort to come to fruition. Real accomplishments through dedication and hard work will earn them respect, whereas even the greatest selfie will only give them fame for a very short time, should they even get there. We have to let them know that vanity leads to isolation and despair and cannot make anyone happy in the end.

What is Waste?

Currently, we are producing much more waste than ever before: A study by the World Bank has shown that ten years ago there were 2.9 billion urban residents who generated about 0.64 kg of municipal solid waste per person per day (0.68 billion tons per year). This report estimates that today these amounts have increased to about 3 billion urban residents generating 1.2 kg per person per day (1.3 billion tons per year). By 2025 this will likely increase to 4.3 billion urban residents generating about 1.42 kg (3.1 pounds) per capita per day of municipal solid waste (2.2 billion tons per year). Just imagine those numbers: 1.42 kg (3.1 pounds) of solid waste per person per day! The prediction is if we don't change our consumption or recycling habits, solid waste production will exceed 11 million tons per day by the end of this century. Since the process of urbanization will continue now and in the near future, an increasing amount of waste will be produced that cannot be easily discarded. As the cities grow into megacities (most drastically in East Asia), new ways of dealing with the rising masses of garbage will have to be developed that will allow people to live in cities, without being stuck in their own waste.

In the U.S. alone, every individual produces on average of 4.38 pounds of waste per day, of which only one third is recycled or composted. The average American also discards 70 pounds of textiles per year, which means about 1.3 pounds per week! This doesn't only include clothes (whether used, outgrown or unused), but also any other kinds of fabrics like bed sheets, tablecloths, curtains, etc. Unfortunately, most of these textiles (85%) do not get recycled properly, but end up in the regular trash and then serve as part of landfills. How can we explain this huge amount of waste? What causes this attitude of purchasing and subsequent discarding? And what does it say about us as humans that we randomly buy and throw away things without much consideration for the effects on the global economy or our planet? Considering that many of us struggle financially, it is even more astounding that the amount of garbage we produce keeps rising steadily.

Clever advertisements make us believe that it raises our social standing, if we get all those outfits, gadgets, games, or devices that are currently trending and give us more satisfaction with life and more confidence in ourselves. We often cannot ignore those never-ending, spectacular sales that give us much more than we actually need for a great price. So we may end up with four beach chairs instead of two, two umbrellas instead of one, 20 new plates instead of ten, etc., etc. Consumerism is so deeply ingrained in our culture, that it is almost inconceivable to abandon it. Shopping has become a type of social outing that is also used for bonding. While buying and shopping is part of every day life and most people don't think twice about a purchase, peer pressure and brand consciousness also plays its part. Refraining from buying anything on a shopping trip, may spoil the mood for everyone involved or look odd. In addition, shopping serves not only the material satisfaction of owning a certain good, but it also fulfills a deeper emotional void.

A recent study maintained that more than half of Americans say they have shopped and spent money in order to improve their mood, but not because they actually needed what they purchased. Emotional buying and thoughtless shopping lead to people accumulating a lot of things that in the end, will not use. For many, the act of buying itself has become a hobby. It is casually called "retail therapy" and refers to an emotional need to buy when we are depressed, anxious, sad, angry, in a bad mood or simply bored. Research suggests that retail therapy actually works, meaning that many people really experience positive emotional effects through shopping. The TV reality show with the same name depicts people having this obsession of constantly buying things (mostly clothes) and how it affects them and their lives. Many of them keep the purchased goods piled high in their wardrobes and/or stacked in numerous garbage bags, since they cannot fit them anywhere else. They don't even get to make use of them, because they obsessively buy new ones which makes the other (still new ones) obsolete. As a result of this uncontrollable drive, some individuals completely indebt themselves, deplete their funds, and have to declare bankruptcy. So in the end, even if retail therapy may work by improving their mood temporarily, it does not seem like a sound solution to a set of much deeper problems that such individuals face. In the end, this drive seems more closely related to social issues like forms of alienation from family, friends, and psychological issues related to self-confidence and self-acceptance.

One major side-effect of this mindless shopping is that people's homes get cluttered with all the stuff that is not being used. Entire basements and garages contain the results of this trend. Some better organized individuals manage to maintain a clutter-free home by getting rid of stuff regularly by donating or gifting it to less fortunate, while they still keep purchasing more and more things that they again don't really need. It is an infinite cycle of buying and discarding, which doesn't make sense, especially considering its drastic negative economic and environmental impact.

The trend of overbuying doesn't stop with imperishable good, but unfortunately also includes food items. Just like clothes and all other kinds of things, an enormous amount of food is wasted in the Western world every day. A study of 2013 showed that almost 50% of all food production ends up as waste every year. The reason is not only the tendency of people to purchase more than they need, inadequate storage facilities or too strict guidelines for food sales, but also Western consumer's demand for cosmetically perfect-looking food. The lack of appeal to consumers was responsible for more than 30% of all crops produced in the UK in 2013 to not even get harvested! The amount of food thrown away in the world per year ends up being worth around 1 trillion USD per year. This trend means that every 1 in 4 calories produced will be disposed of, instead of consumed. It also means that every year, consumers in industrialized countries waste almost as much food as the entire net food production of sub-Saharan Africa (222 million vs. 230 million tons). In the U.S. alone 30-40% of all food is wasted, equaling more than 20 pounds per person per month. Even for American school children studies have shown that about 1/3 of their packed lunch is not consumed, but discarded before it is even touched every day. 

One of the answers to these versions of mindless consumerism is freeganism. Freegans not only reject the economic system that produced this types of consumption, but rather than contributing to further waste production, they curtail garbage and pollution, reducing the over-all volume of the humongous waste stream. Freegans usually include groups of conscious residents of big cities who are very concerned about the social and ecological effects of our consumption economy. Amongst each other, they share valuable insights into the garbage disposal system on the local levels with their peers: e.g. information about who throws away the best (still good) sushi, most delicious bread, best vegetables, etc. But they also disagree with the individualism that our way of life has created and want to revive some aspects of communal living. Freegans generally regard their so-called "food dives" as social events in which they collect still good and healthy foods from garbage disposals and afterwards prepare meals from the salvaged items for the entire group. The joint meal that follows is equally a celebration of their all-inclusive community as it is a celebration of saving perfectly good food or other still useful manufactured items from being wasted. These items may include beverages, books, toiletries, magazines, comic books, newspapers, videos, kitchenware, appliances, music (CDs, cassettes, records, etc.), carpets, musical instruments, clothing, rollerblades, scooters, furniture, vitamins, electronics, animal care products, games, toys, bicycles, artwork, and many more things that are still okay to use and will not cause any health threats. Although digging through garbage is most likely not appealing to everyone, saving perfectly good items from being discarded every day seems like a very reasonable and rational thing to do. In the bigger picture of the planet's destruction through mindless garbage production and ecological threats, this way of life seems to make perfect sense. While freegans are usually politically awakened individuals who actively seek an alternate life-style, this way of optimizing discarded surplus does only reach a small portion of needy groups who cannot afford to feed themselves and their families at market prices. In order to make these foods available to a much bigger portion of disadvantaged individuals, a better organized system of food donations must be created that would help meet two ends: less wasted food and fewer families in need.

Another, different way of not to get caught up in the spiral of consumption and production of waste is to become self-sufficient. A few months ago, I noticed a blog by an impressive young woman who refuses to produce any waste at all. As a student of environmental studies in NYC, she realized one day at lunch that a broad range of individuals produced a lot of unnecessary waste, even though they packed their own meals. As reaction to the thousands of snack bags and plastic forks, aluminium wrap that she saw being used, she decided to go garbage free. She refused to produce any garbage at all by cooking at home, buying in bulk, bringing her own containers to the stores, and by manufacturing all the toiletries that she needs every day herself (creams, make-up, tooth paste, shampoo, etc.). Since all her organic waste gets composted, her clothes are bought and sold at second hand-stores, and she rides her bicycle to get around, and she manages to live a "zero-waste" kind of life. By becoming self-sufficient or autarkic, she can completely avoid the economy that engages in the endless cycle of consuming and discarding goods. Heads-off to this young lady, who can lives on zero waste! 

As this year's Earth Day that just passed a few days ago, all the media information made us aware of the ecological state of affairs of our planet. It has become clear that if we do not change our consumption habits drastically in the near future, our planet is in real trouble. It is frightening to think about the enormous amounts of foods and manufactured goods that are being wasted in the Western world every day. We have to do everything we can to possibly to save our planet, which includes little things like bringing your own bags to the grocery store, recycling your paper, bottles, batteries, plastic, abstaining from buying water in plastic bottles, and reducing our waste as much as possible. But it also includes more drastic measures like breaking our cycles of buying things that we do not need, and addressing the underlying social causes for such behavior patterns. It includes teaching our children to develop a more responsible attitude towards ourselves as humans and our planet. In addition, we much also seed for national and global measures to help better distribute the surplus to the people in need. Ideally these solutions will be also linked to the need for foods and manufactured goods in other parts of the world.

What is Safety?

In a world where police officers shoot people they have prejudices against, where individuals get assassinated because they express their opinions openly, where pilots crash planes on purpose, and where people get arrested for allowing their children to walk home from school unsupervised, issues of safety are a top priority. While the degree of actual threat varies greatly depending on neighborhood, social class, ethnic identity, racial appearance, economic background, sexual preference, and gender, we are all united in the high concern for our own safety and that of our family and friends. As best we can, we try to regulate our environment by controlling the social world that we engage in. The general rule for this is: The more expensive the neighborhood and the home property prices, the lower the crime rate and the better the school district. Although this helps asserting a feeling of increased security, there is no guarantee that a higher-end neighborhood will actually prevent you from any kind of harm. You can never completely control your environment and have to live with the fact that in the end, something could happen (and it does), even in the most expensive neighborhoods. Despite any efforts, you still may encounter random school shootings, abductions or any other random acts of violent aggression.

Constant concerns for the physical safety of children turn parenting into a special challenge. While helping on the National Incidence Study of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART 2) as a research assistant more than a decade ago, I learned that 1,315,600 children went missing in the U.S. during the period from 1997-1999. The enormous number can partially be explained by the fact that it also included children that voluntarily ran away from home and those that were missing for more than an hour due to misunderstandings between child and caretaker, but reappeared. Last year's number for missing children, whose absence had been reported to the authorities, amounted to 466,949, which means close to half a million! So far this year, Amber Alert helped recover 758 missing children. These numbers demonstrate that the perceived threat to our kids' physical safety is real and has to be taken very seriously.

Another danger that we think about quite some time, and that unfortunately becomes real all too often, is gun violence. Many of the incidences could be easily prevented with stricter gun laws. This would alleviate us from the worry about angry criminals roaming the streets waiting to kill someone (or like in our neighborhood recently a suicidal, armed veteran who roamed the area close to the local elementary school). The change in legislation would make guns less accessible and prevent many of the violent incidences that occur in a heated moment when there is easy access to a gun. Often times fatalities happen unintentionally, because of simple avoidable mistakes like storing guns inappropriately and not keeping ammunition separate from firearms. Remember the unfortunate incident last year when a 9-year old girl shot her shooting instructor with a machine gun in Arizona? Or the more recent incident from last December when a 2-year old boy unintentionally shot his mother in a Walmart store with a loaded gun that his mother carried around in her purse while shipping? Unfortunately, there are many more horrific, unforgettable incidences, like school shootings, drive by shootings and lethal hostage crisis that further highlight the danger of accessibility of firearms.

Even if we act responsibly and are successful in raising our kids to become upright and respectful citizens, we cannot control our environment and guarantee that we or our children are safe. No wonder that as a result, parents often become overprotective of their children. The constant fear that something could happen to them while playing outside, keeps parents worried non-stop. In other countries that have a much lower crime rate and where guns are far more regulated than in the U.S. (like Scandinavian countries or Germany), children of all ages have a lot more freedoms and parents worry much less. Kids there are encouraged and taught how to use public transport alone, how to ride their bikes to friends' houses (even if that may be a few miles away) and how to walk to a shop unaccompanied. Nobody in these cultural environments finds this dangerous, irresponsible or unadvisable. In fact, studies have confirmed that it helps kids to learn how to become responsible, independent, and find their place in society. The current generation of children in the U.S. not only does not have a life similar to those children, but they also don't have a life similar to that of their own parents who enjoyed many of the same freedoms that kids in other countries still have. Due to the understanding of safety in the U.S., kids have a very structured life where they go from one supervised activity to the next and barely have any unstructured time. While this method assures us that they are accounted for, it also deprives them of acquiring many skills learned by free play they will need as adults. We have yet to see, what kind of effect this will have once this generation enters the workforce.

But today's threats on personal safety do not come from violence alone, but also from the foods that we consume. Often times we don't check carefully which foods go in our mouth and may not be aware that we stuff ourselves with harmful ingredients. Lots of foods are genetically modified, enriched (with chemicals) or processed in ways that are dangerous to our bodies. While many of us check the labels and try to protect ourselves from as many harmful substances as possible, often times information about certain ingredients becomes confusing, and as consumers we don't really know what is safe and what not. In those moments, the thought in my head is often, 'If official/authorities allow foods to contain these ingredients, then they cannot be so bad, right? After all, they are the experts and they wouldn't want to people to get sick.' But should we really trust this inner voice? In some other nations food labeling and identifying harmful foods undergoes much stricter guidelines than in the U.S.. I remember in a Danish supermarket that Heinz ketchup had a big neon sticker across the label indicating that the product contained high fructose corn syrup and that the local authorities highly discouraged the consumption of this product, because this ingredient was harmful. The point is, consumer self-education to a certain point has to be expected, but it should also be in the interest of the authorities here in the U.S. to create awareness and educate. They should alert us about potentially dangerous foods and prevent these foods to enter the market while instead directing consumers to cleaner and healthier choices. If no attention is raised about harmful ingredients, serious health hazard remain disguised.

Another threat that has become very real for many families is that more and more kids grow up with dangerous, sometimes fatal food allergies. I got to know a family with a child haunted by severe peanut allergy. For the kids it could be fatal just by coming in contact with peanuts or food containing them and by coming in contact with something that had touched peanuts or foods containing them. For this particular family it meant that the mother accompanied the child everywhere to supervise the surroundings and make sure that it was safe, at least until school age. Once the child started Kindergarten, the mother still came to school to observe the child's lunch and eliminate potential threats. Since a drastically increasing number of children suffer from allergies, more and more parents have to send separate snack packages for their child to those birthday parties that they attend, pass on eating and drinking instructions to the supervising parents before playdates, and have to trust that they will remember this significant information. All these considerations lead to constant worries on behalf of the parents, something that earlier generations of parents did not have to do.

What does this all mean? That we as individuals, consumers, and parents should remember our right to the pursuit of happiness which clearly includes issues of safety. We should demand more protection against threats from guns and harmful foods that could be eliminated with the right kind of legislation. For officials and authorities it should be a clear priority to protect the rights of the people to personal safety and not place economic gains of big corporations before the needs of individuals. With stricter gun laws and higher health standards in place, we may even be able to revive some of the lost freedoms for our children and us.

What is Balance?

We all have busy lives. We have deadlines at work, family obligations and some days we barely manage to do everything we are supposed to do. We worry about traffic and commute. We have to rush to make our meetings on time, being prepared enough. As parents we rush to get everything done for our kids: sign and return permission slips for school, to pack a healthy, well-balanced lunch that they will actually eat;  to pick them up on time; to drop them off to their activities with all the supplies they need; to have a dinner available when the evening comes, of course we strive for home-made and healthy. Most of us don’t have paid helpers, so we have to manage on our own. On many days, we barely make it and compromise our high standards quite a bit. The kid may go to school with not such a healthy lunch after all and dinner may be take-out, some of the clothes may be semi-clean, etc. On most days we experience some kind of stress that comes from rushing all the time. With so busy lives, it seems strange to get up every morning rushing around all day and then go to bed again in order to perform the same dance the next day. It is hectic for most families, but it is so much harder for single parents who work full-time and have to get their kids organized and ready by themselves every day.

In a culture that is so focused on work, it is difficult to find balance. Between working full-time, commuting, and the kid’s activities, there is barely any time to spare. Many people do not even have the time to unwind after a busy day of work, because they are already stressed out about the next day. Living such a hectic life doesn’t seem healthy or sane. It not only makes you wonder how people can endure it in the long run, but you also start doubting the deeper meaning in life. In order to stay healthy, we all need to take time for ourselves. We need unstructured time to relax, recharge and to do “nothing”. We need this valuable time to process things, to remain sharp, but also in order to avoid serious health risks. It allows us to grow, to find what makes us happy, and to progress. 

Unstructured time allows you to figure out what you are really interested in. If you never have free time, how will you know what you like? You keep rushing from one appointment to the next and at the end of a busy day you fall into bed while watching TV without that healthy meal that you had originally promised yourself, you have no time to reflect. When you have some unstructured time, it gives you the chance to take a breather, you can ignore all your to-do-lists for a while and some stress will fall right off you. If instead you run away from the silence that accompanies unstructured time and switch on your TV or radio, you miss an opportunity to refresh your brain. Unstructured time makes you creative. If you have nothing specific to do, you have time to think about things that were on your mind, may get clarity or start to tinker with things. You may enjoy an intellectual challenge that you stumble upon and want to pursue and notice that you like applying your brain in new ways. As some studies have shown, you may have some really great ideas while you are not specifically trying to solve problems or focus on something. Subconsciously, you may be digesting the things that went on at work or in a group setting, but in your free time, you may be able to make sense of it all and find unexpected innovative solutions.

The most creative and innovative thinkers came up with their ideas, inventions or new ways to understand the world while being alone and experiencing unstructured time: Plato sat in his cave, Newton under a tree, Einstein on his bike, and Stephen Jobs in his garage when the innovative ideas hit them. Not that we all have to become geniuses like them or need to develop ideas that have the power to transform the world, but in order to find balance and to understand yourself and your surroundings, we have to spend some time alone in an unstructured environment.

Even for people who don’t work full-time it is hard to find balance. We have the tendency to overdo things that we perceive as important: e.g. if we want to lose weight, our whole life suddenly revolves around the gym, running, swimming, eating, etc. If we focus on being healthy, we tend to instantly devote most of our day to buying great ingredients, cooking and baking fresh foods and observing what we ear. If we want to learn a new skill, we suddenly dive into it, forgetting other things and sometimes people that are important to us. It must be part of human nature that we start obsessing about things. In order to live a healthy life, there needs to be a balance between all the different aspects that make up a good life: the social, intellectual, professional, spiritual, and individual dimensions. If you are not challenged enough in your daily routine, you tend to become lazy and unsatisfied. Even though you don’t have so many things to do, it may get harder and harder for you to do them all, because you are not challenged.

On the other hand, rushing all the time not only makes life less fun, but it also has serious health risks. Recent studies have shown that the levels of hormones that regulate appetite are profoundly influenced by sleep duration and sleep deprivation. Sleep loss is associated with an increase in appetite that is excessive in relation to the caloric demands of extended wakefulness. At the same time, when we feel under stress, we start producing a stress hormone that slows down our metabolism so that we can survive longer on less food. So, if we don’t sleep enough, the production of the appetite reducer is inhibited and we tend to eat more, even though we are not hungry. Due to the lack of sleep, we will not be able to control out food intake levels which necessarily leads to increased waistlines and an increased risk for diabetes. At the same time, gaining weight causes even more stress. Instead of sleeping more to counteract the process, we chose the opposite and make our life even more hectic: schedule more time for the gym and may end up getting even less sleep because of it, which again will increase our waistline.

Balance is not only a problem that parents and adults struggle with, but it also deeply affects children. Many children have lives that are far too busy and too structured. After school, they usually to go to after school care or have scheduled activities, like soccer, baseball, basketball, instrument lessons, etc. or they have planned playdates, visits to doctors, the library, museums or any other kind or activities organized by their well-meaning parents. Recent studies comparing child-raising in the United States with that of other nations have found that in order for children to grow up to be independent, well-rounded, creative, and smart, they need a larger amount of unstructured time, in which children can discover the world through role play. Extensive role play in young years, can free them from anxiety as they practice living through dangerous situations through play. It also allows them to figure out what they are good at and what they enjoy. Having more free or unstructured time as a child, these studies found, makes us smarter, braver, and much more creative. 

As long as the U.S. system doesn’t have the provisions for working parents to take better care of their children (e.g. paternity leave, extended maternity leave, reduced or more flexible work-week for parents) that already exist in many other countries, the weekly rush will probably not change. This means that finding balance is left up to us adults/parents. We have to make a more conscious effort to allow ourselves to rest and sleep enough and to raise our children in an environment that does not keep them busy all day. Instead, we have to allow them to experience plenty of unstructured time that challenges them to be creative and in which they can discover themselves and the world.

What Exactly is Time?

As we prepared and celebrated my older daughter’s birthday last week, I was thinking back to all the milestone moment in her life, wondering how we made it this far, and ELEVEN years passed by so quickly. Isn’t it strange? We have proof that it has been eleven years, but still it seemed so much shorter (even though some of the days felt that they would never end).  Why do we perceive time as expanding sometimes and standing still at others? What makes it go faster and what slows it down? Which factors play into changes in its perception? Time is never the same. It seems to be tied to emotions and it also has to do with one’s stage in life. Since Einstein we know that time is relative. It changes according to perception and according to the system that it is bound to. But what does that even mean? And how does perception of time change over the course of one’s life?

For children, time seems to consist of long periods of waiting for specific activities and events to occur. They focus on events and developments in the future. They get excited and try to figure out how long they have to wait before those events are finally there. As soon as they can, they ask e.g. if it is their birthday yet, how many days until their favorite holiday, and when will they see grandma again. Their focus on events in the future converts big chunks of the present into waiting time. The past is not at all interesting for them. There are lots of hope, dreams, and aspirations tied to their perception of they future.  They dream about what they want to be, where and how they want to live, who they may consider marrying, etc.

When we become parents, the focus shifts abruptly, as our lives suddenly get dominated not only by the needs of others, but also by the shift from the focus on the future (awaiting the day the baby will be born) to the present (baby needs to be fed and cleaned, etc.). Work has to be accomplished in the here and now so that the child has a bright, healthy, and promising future. The parents then await the child to reach their developmental milestones, but their own focus is the present. Events of the future have to be considered, planned, and executed. At work everything is about getting the task done that needs to be accomplished at that specific moment, deadlines haunt us. At home it is not much different. All the little things have to be prepared, breakfasts served, lunches and snacks packed, laundry cleaned, etc. If a birthday is approaching, like in our house recently, not only the gifts, the cupcakes, the birthday cake have to be organized and delivered to the appropriate places at the correct times, but most likely a party will be held to mark the milestone, which also entails careful preparation. While children probably only have an awareness of the upcoming party, parents are well aware of all the work that leads up to the special event. So in this stage of life we have to be focused on the present. Often we get overwhelmed because it seems that there is not enough time to accomplish everything that needs to be done. Lots of people feel that they are “running out of time” or “have no time.”

As we age and our kids leave us to live their own lives, we tend to live more and more in the past, remembering good and bad times in our childhood and thinking back to the memorable days when our own children reached their specific milestones. Focus shifts to the past and time starts to be measured by the time SINCE something happened: “five days since my daughter called me” or “two weeks since I saw them”. Time is measured in the intervals that are between the visits with family and friends and time spent together. Again, like in childhood, there are long stretches of waiting time that are not filled with so many aspirations for the future as memories of the past.

We all know well about the physical changes through which the passing of time manifests itself. For children, these signs are hopefully awaited (first lost tooth, first beard hair, first signs of development) as they signify the entering into a new phase in life. They want to grow and become full members of society. For parents, it is a dreaded shift, that people are determined to stall as long as possible or to fight head-on. Who wants to have grey hair, an increasing waistline, and wrinkles? There is a multi-billion dollar industry making profits from us all not willing to accept the process of aging, but that may be a good theme for a different blog post.

How we experience the passing of time is not only linked to our stage in life, but also to all kinds of emotions. When we are having a good time for example, time appears to pass very quickly, “it flies”. And when we are bored or waiting for something to happen is seems to drag endless or even “stands still.” But intense emotions seem to have an even more profound effect on our way of experiencing time. When we grieve the death of a loved one or suffer from a break-up of a long relationship, we only feel grief and sadness. It consumes us. There is no room for anything else. The same thing is true for the opposite emotions. When we are completely happy for example, laughing with our kids, rolling on the floor, we are consumed by happiness. We BECOME that emotion and time seems to stand still. We do not think about anything else, not the future, not the past, we just completely live in the moment. Similarly, when we immerse ourselves in an activity that we love to do (for some it may be their job, for others it may be a hobby), we tend to forget things around us and completely live in the moment. As if space and time become irrelevant. (Just think about new lovers who seem to forget time.) So, perception of time, it seems,  also has to do with our undivided attention, but it also has to do with how well we immerse ourselves in the activity that we are engaged in at the moment.

Studies have shown that meditation can alter the perception of time by changing mechanisms in the brain. While meditating, the outside world is systematically blocked out and the focus shifts to inside the body and the mind. As a result, influences that usually distract us, are contained before they even get to us. This not only improves our mental and physical health, but also can adjust our perception of time through relaxation and re-shifting focus. Time then “slows down” again. Buddhist monks for example are able to conduct so focused meditations (and slow their breaths) that sitting still and focusing on the inside, they believe, allows them to see a glimpse of the divine that may allow them to escape the everlasting cycle of rebirth and life. That means that focus, in a way, can help us escape the boundaries of time. The same mechanism is at work while practicing yoga. By remaining in yoga poses, slowing one's breaths and concentrating on the muscles used to remain still in the poses, focus can also be shifted and time perception can be altered subsequently.

So what do we get from this? Besides me finding it extremely interesting to think about, it may help us when we get caught up in daily rushes and worries. Maybe when we “run out of time” it is good to stop for a minute and consider the moment that we live in and refocus on the important things. In the end, time is all we have in life. The more memorable moments we create for us and for others, the more beautiful memories we can look back on and contemplate once we are old and have more time.