Society

Reflections while doing dishes

July 23, 2019

I will be useless in the end times because I’ll still be saving rubber bands in case someone someday needs one.

I’ll be useless because I’ll still be rinsing out plastic bags in the sea as the water rises.

With the last gallon of gas, I’ll still be gliding to a stop in order to go just a little bit further.

Once the gas is gone I’ll be thinking of something useful to do with the car.

The habits grooved deep in me as rituals of giving a damn will keep on precisely because they are habits.

I will be one of those wispy haired disheveled old women with a toothless smile. I will call everyone dearie and honey, and see if I have something in my pocket for them.

It’s too late to change everything, my friends.

Our bad habits are deeper than our will to break them.

Our addictions to oil and blindness are crispr’d into our DNA.

So let’s save rubber bands and plastic bags, let’s empty our pockets,

let’s fight for what’s right not because we will win (and we’ll want to) but because it’s just what we do.

Let us let this be okay.

What do I change now that the change has come? Perhaps only my expectation that we could change this… in time.

I am not hopeless. I am only without the hopes I had.

I will fall silent soon as life grows resplendent with truth.

Vicki Robin

Vicki Robin is a prolific social innovator, writer, speaker, and host of the What Could Possibly Go Right? podcast. She is coauthor with Joe Dominguez of the international best-seller, Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship With Money and Achieving Financial Independence (Viking Penguin, 1992, 1998, 2008, 2018). And author of Blessing the Hands that Feed Us; Lessons from a 10-mile diet (Viking Penguin, 2013), which recounts her adventures in hyper-local eating and what she learned about food, farming, belonging, and hope. Vicki has lectured widely and appeared on hundreds of radio and television shows, including “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” “Good Morning America,” and National Public Radio’s “Weekend Edition” and “Morning Edition.” She has also been featured in hundreds of magazines including People Magazine, AARP, The Wall Street Journal, Woman’s Day, Newsweek, Utne Magazine, and the New York Times. She currently lives on Whidbey Island in the Puget Sound and is active in her community on a range of social and environmental issues including affordable housing, local food, and community investing. For fun, she is a comedy improv actress, sings in a choir, gardens, and nurtures a diverse circle of friends.

Tags: building resilient societies