Living Consciously

[No Poetry Here, Just a Conscious Way Of Thinking!]

Some accept a consciousness on how they live their life
Others live any ol’ way and worry not about the consequences
Well, I awoke this morning thinking about how this modern life
Produces so much detritus, trash, left-overs and the unwanted

There’s something about me that wants to recycle
Hence, I have a hard time throwing anything away
Until it’s all used up, stripped clean, and dismantled
But that’s just me. I still create a lot of leftovers to be tossed.

Using people as an example, can you imagine how many you use
To get what you want and to where you want to be
Every shuffling step requires others to have done what they do
Before you could walk a mile, drive a car, or fly in a plane.

Everything we do leaves a refuse pile to be handled!
Even when we focus on doing something cleanly and without waste
Something went into producing what we want
But even a minimalist leaves something behind when created or used.

During this pandemic, we’ve grown into online shoppers
And made some corporations very rich, but it’s the people and packages
Keep ’em busy, producing, shipping, and delivering
How many tons of wrapping have you tossed these two years?

Recycle? Reuse? Reclaim? Maybe it’s truly time to Reduce
Waste not, want not. Store it till it’s useful again.
Hanging on doesn’t make sense, but tossing to the Refuse pile
Is an even worse fate for what was sought for yesterday

I awoke thinking about all the wealth of recyclables I have
Even if it’s unusable, the raw materials should be more valuable
Rather than tossing into File 13 (Trash can at your feet)
Can we recycle a nail? Baggie? Packaging? Tired coffee pot?

Or perhaps the key is to stop buying those things
Which we will never completely use. Whoops! Oh no?!
Did I just say that? Let me re-read this. Yes. It looks like I did.
But the truth is there. We have more than we need.

When God told Adam to Subdue The Earth
You may think we’ve done what we were taught
But that word for Subdue and more easily be thought
That we are here to Master and Rule, not waste and squander

Where do we go from here, there’s no starting over
No Mulligan will reclaim the lost years and resources we’ve spent
Perhaps there are ways to move from here to there
Getting better, wiser, and more focused to boot!

Maybe the key is to start small work forward, not backward
To get from here to there, we must take one step, then two
Every sliver has the potential to be used or reclaimed
There gold in them there hills! (Waste and recycling centers)

I want to be a better steward, consumer, recycler of detritus
To do so, I must first educate myself on the symbols of recycling
What’s plastic, harmful, helpful, and can I stop using that
Which is a horrible consumer of our resources.

Every electronic gadget contains expensive components.
But they are worthless when broken or aged or you change directions
Soylent Green, anyone? Planned obsolescence? Even Me?
Gasp?!?!??? I’m planning on living to triple digits.

What’s my usefulness, and that’s what I question today
Am I recycling and reusing my mental and leadership resources?
Or have I allowed myself to have been relegated,
To a shelf, closet, senior retirement center with others equally old?

No! That’s not me! I have a purpose. I can be reused! Repurposed!
No wastage here! Valuable to all generations for years to come!
So, I keep learning, growing, doing, asking, stretching (ow!)
I am sharpening my mind for changing times.

How about you?

Current Resource that started this morning thought.
Go ahead, read it. I dare you to not think about the waste.
[Click Here] Some will think about the money lost…
I consider the resources we’ll never get back.