Don’t pee in the ocean...

Do you remember that one time in the middle of the night, under the full moon, in Mexico, after several shots of tequila and muchas cervezas, you decided to get off your beach chair and stand by the lovely Atlantic Ocean and relieve yourself while the cool waves were gently washing your feet? Ah, it felt great, didn’t?

Well, did you look down at your feet to see where all that pee ended up?

So here we are in 2011 and many are sounding off the alarms. Scientists, environmentalists and others are no longer reminding us gently to be kind to Mother Earth; rather they are hitting us in the head with piles and piles of documents, which are most likely printed on cheap paper imported from one of the old rainforests in British Columbia or Brazil.

Well, it was nearly 40 years ago when my grandmother told me “never pee in the ocean” (please excuse the language, but she was a straight-forward and no non-sense woman, who survived many wars and did not think she owed anyone anything). She always said to be careful with how we treat Mother Earth because as kind as she is, she does have a temper.

Well, as you’d expect, I didn’t realize what my grandmother meant until a decade later. Here it goes: After many years of abusing Mother Earth, she is finally throwing it back at us. She is telling us that enough is enough and that she can no longer accommodate our wastefulness and growth. Have you noticed how much stuff we have been throwing away over the past couple of centuries? Everything we own is getting bigger, including our expectations from Mother Earth.

Why not take a step back and figure out what it is that we need in this life and pursue that instead of owning a television set in each one of our 4 bedrooms, living room, family room, toy room, home gym, entertainment room, each one of our bathrooms, and the one that is installed to the ceiling of the master bedroom so we can watch our own reflection when... well, you get the point.

My commitment to Mother Earth: I’ll never pee in the ocean again; please forgive me for that time in Cancun.

Thank you for being kind,

Armin