Blog 1
In today’s society, the concepts of diversity, sustainability, and social responsibility get talked about more and more. We see these words on the internet, read it in articles, discuss them in class, and write them in essays. But do we really understand what these concepts mean in real life?
During the Better Lives unit, we were introduced to many professionals in different fields about many different areas and has broadened my thinking on concepts like diversity, sustainability, and social responsibility. Personally speaking, all my knowledge of these concepts before is all “superficial”. I know all the theories and impacts, I understand the importance of it and have knowledge that allows me to write essays about these topics, but I have hardly ever put these concepts in real-life situations and apply them in my own context.
Reflecting back at my own experience, I realized that there is a lot we can do to make everything more sustainable. One of them is to buy less. With the heavy influence of consumerism nowadays, many people, including me, unconsciously have the wrong idea that consumption can bring happiness. Although to equate consumption with happiness can stimulate the economy and make businesses and enterprises profitable, it causes a great burden on the environment. A lot of our consumption is non-necessities, unnecessary products. Take clothes for example. In the era of fast fashion, many clothes have a very short life span and will be thrown away after the fashion trend is over. This is extremely wasteful not to mention the waste and pollution produced during the production process of these clothes.
In my opinion, fashion is one of the easiest ways to start in order to reduce unnecessary buying. Going through my wardrobe, I see many clothes that I buy and never wear or have only be worn a few times. I have also found items that were trendy at the time but not anymore. I realize that out of all these cloths, the ones I wear often are the same and the rest of them are the result of impulsive buying. I start to think that is it really necessary to buy these clothes? Do I really need them or do I just want them?
To solve this problem from the source, I think we should try our best to change our consumption concept and raise awareness of that, making it social responsibility, in order to change this phenomenon.
As young adults, we have more responsibility for trying to solve this problem and change our mindset . since we are soon going to be the new blood into every industry and field, it is crucial for us to understand that the concept of buying can bring us happiness is not true. Only when we recognize this and change our behavior can we then affect and encourage others to do the same.
Together, we can make a difference.