Stop the catalog avalanche
Watching a recent episode of Bill Moyers Journal on PBS, we learned about CatalogChoice.org, an organization helping people who want to extricate themselves from the catalog avalanche that’s buried them and filled their mailboxes to overflowing. Similar to the “Do Not Call” service that prevents you from receiving telephone solicitation calls, CatalogChoice.org helps you reduce the clutter of catalogs crowding out the mail you really want to see in your mailbox.
Benefits of using the free service at CatalogChoice.org
- Reduce mailbox clutter and save time you spend sorting through unwanted mail.
- Help merchants lower their cost of distribution and better target their market. (Who knows, maybe they’ll pass the savings on to their customers.)
- Catalog Choice community collectively promotes the use of best practices in the direct mailing industry.
- Make a huge positive impact on our environment, by reducing energy consumption, carbon emissions, and the destroyed forests that result from the current annual production and discarding of more than 19 billion paper catalogs.
What effect do catalogs have on our environment?
- Over eight million tons of trees are consumed each year in the production of paper catalogs.
- Nearly half of the planet’s original forest cover is gone today. Forests have effectively disappeared in 25 countries, and another 29 have lost more than 90% of their forest cover.
- Deforestation contributes between 20% and 25% of all carbon pollution, causing global climate change.
- More than one billion people living in extreme poverty around the world depend on forests for their livelihoods.
- There are other significant environmental impacts from the catalog cycle. The production and disposal of direct mail alone consumes more energy than three million cars.
- The manufacturing, distribution, collection and disposal of catalogs generates global warming gases as well as air and water pollution. Reducing the number of unwanted catalogs that are mailed will help the environment.
Facts above come directly from CatalogChoice.org website.
Remember, if you’re truly wanting to reduce the amount of junk mail you receive, get your name on the Direct Marketing Association’s Mail Preference Service which can significantly decrease the amount of national advertising mail you receive. You can also opt out of pre-screened credit card and insurance offers by using OptOutPreScreen.com or calling 1-888-567-8688.
The transformative power of gratitude, thankfulness and appreciation
Gratitude is something I consciously bring into my life on a daily basis. At the evening meal, my husband, Bruce, and I express gratitude for one or more things that happened or simply were during the day. Some days our words of thanks flow easily from hearts filled to the brim with appreciation. Other days we might really have to think about what we actually feel grateful for. Regardless of how easy or hard it is for us to identify that for which we are thankful, we have maintained this practice for over 5 years.
How gratitude has changed my life
People who know me would have said that I’ve always been a grateful person. This is true. Actively choosing to identify and name that for which I am grateful, however, has, in itself, been a blessing in my life.
- Gratitude makes even the toughest days easier. To me, practicing gratitude is like standing in the dark woods with the flame of a candle the only light and saying, “wow, look at that light” rather than, “man, it’s dark out here.”
- Gratitude reminds me of how rich and blessed I truly am. In American culture, we’re bombarded with messages that tell us to think we need more stuff or better stuff to be truly happy. The truth is, I’m happy and blessed regardless of the amount or quality of stuff in my life.
- Gratitude opens my heart with compassion. When I am conscious of how blessed I am, I also realize that there are people throughout our world who do truly suffer. I tend to then take action to do what I can to help ease that suffering, so they too can feel grateful for their lives.
- Gratitude makes me more grateful. Like an ascending spiral staircase, feeling grateful for one thing often triggers gratitude for another which reminds me of yet another thing for which I am thankful. Taking that first act of noticing opens my eyes to other blessings which I might have missed if not for that initial choice to see with thankful eyes.
- Gratitude simplifies my life. Like many people, I sometimes get caught in the tsunami that is modern culture. By practicing gratitude, I become aware of how little I truly need to be happy, healthy, and fully alive. Gratitude slows me down and kindles peace in my heart and mind.
- Gratitude makes me attractive. My gratitude practice makes my inner light shine brighter and others (people, animals, energy) are drawn to me to bask in that glow. It’s like being your own generator of positive, life-affirming energy when you consciously choose gratitude.
I would be grateful to know about your experience with gratitude. How has it changed your life? What keeps you from feeling grateful? What most profoundly evokes your gratitude? Please use the “comments” area to share or trackback to this post from your site.
Gratitude Quotes
“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion to clarity. . . . Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
~ Melody Beattie“I do not think of all the misery, but of the glory that remains. Go outside into the fields, nature and the sun, go out and seek happiness in yourself and in God. Think of the beauty that again and again discharges itself within and without you and be happy.”
~ Anne Frank“It seems to me that we often, almost sulkily, reject the good that God offers us because, at the moment, we expected some other good.”
~ C.S. Lewis“Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return.”
~ Mary Jean Iron
Hugs are bad for you (not!)
Back in October of 2006, I wrote about Juan Mann who offered free hugs to others because, as he said in an interview, “…everyone just seemed so miserable. So I thought I’d try to do something to just see people smile and cheer up a little bit.” The post about Juan’s free hugs also includes a moving video of the response to his hugs.
Though the hugs seemed to produce wonderful results for the hugger and huggie, authorities were not pleased (maybe because they didn’t allow themselves to be hugged). Now it seems that hugs have undergone another attack by people who don’t want any more affection being shared. An Illinois middle-school student received detention because she hugged two classmates. Yes, hugging people is against this school’s policy.
When did affection and hugging become a bad thing?
I was once a middle-school student and my stepmom was even a high school principal, so I know that “public displays of affection” (PDAs) can be disruptive and inappropriate in a school setting. What I don’t understand is how we allow ourselves to be talked into rules that prohibit kindness, compassion, and amicable ways of interacting with each other.
- If anything, kids today need more affection, not less.
- They need more room to be friendly and sociable with each other, not less room.
- Kids need more displays of love and appreciation, not less.
- Kids, and grown up kids alike, need less fear in life and more freedom.
Hugs are good for you and aren’t something that we should pass rules to prohibit. If anything a rule mandating more hugs would go a long way toward making middle-school — and even the world — a more friendly place. Now go out there and hug someone (and hope that your school, shopping mall, company, or city doesn’t have rules or laws prohibiting your act of love).
When what you know won’t help — the problem with omniscience in relationships
Has your omniscience ever gotten in the way of one of your relationships? I can almost guarantee that it has even if you don’t think so. I’m certain of this because all of us have a God-complex where we “know how things should be.” We don’t know this, of course. At best we know how we want things to be. It’s this all-knowingness that can create barriers in our relationships, walling us off from the people with whom we’re trying to connect.
I was reminded of this concept when I read Pyrrhic Victories, by Jan Matney, in which she wrote, “We begin our conversations with others, having predetermined the relationship, projecting onto 
them what we know to be true. ‘I know’ is an immediate disconnection from others. Not knowing, being curious and open is a state of being that is both humble and alive with possibility.” Her story reawakened me to the fact that sometimes I too, unintentionally create a disconnection from others when I forget that I don’t know. So now I’m doing my best to remember that I do not know what others think, believe, feel, want, or need unless they tell me.
Steps to build relationships from a place of not knowing
- Remind yourself that you do not know what others think, believe, feel, want, or need unless they tell you
- Be open to learning what you don’t know and show your curiosity
- Ask others what they think, believe, feel, want, or need (Or verify what you think they think, believe, feel, want, or need)
- Be willing to share what you think, believe, feel, want, or need because others are no more omniscient than you
“‘I know’ is an immediate disconnection from others. Not knowing, being curious and open is a state of being that is both humble and alive with possibility.”
~ Jan Matney
