With this year’s Earth Day came the “thank you, Mother Nature” posts clogging up Facebook, Twitter and Instagram feeds. These posts came from people who use their reusable water bottles once to take a Snapchat of saving the planet and find the cutest filter with a little happy planet earth on it. People post their gorgeous sunset photos, landscape photography or hiking trails during the summer, with a sweet message about Earth Day and loving the planet.
What about the other 364 days of the year?
Too many people focus on just one day to appreciate our planet. They become an advocate for taking care of the environment through their single yearly post when they should be doing it all year round.
Little things, such as picking up after yourself or others at the park or using a reusable alternative instead of a single-use disposable item, can be incorporated into your daily life to help the planet all year round. It will show more concern for the environment than a one-sentence and four-photo post on social media.
Refuse the plastic straws at the restaurant and show those around you that you care about the cute sea turtles. Bring your own coffee cup to your local coffee shop for your morning fill-up and do not add to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Walk or bike to work instead of taking your car every single day. Obviously, there are things that can be done to positively impact the environment that help more than posting a photo on social media. Some more extreme changes could include living a zero-waste lifestyle, donating money or time to places that work on cleaning oil spills and other environmental issues and regularly volunteering in your community to clean up parts of the city that are forgotten about. Whatever level you would like to contribute, there are things that can be done to show others you actually care about the environment outside of your social media posts.
Instead of taking one day of the year to appreciate the beauty of the earth around you, take a moment each day to appreciate a piece of Mother Nature. Maybe the wind blows past, cooling you down on a warm summer day. Maybe as you are driving to your 9-to-5 job that sucks the life out of you, you catch a glimpse of the sunrise, moving your day in the right direction. Either way, appreciate Mother Nature every day of the year. Our planet is a beautiful place that deserves to be appreciated every day of the year, not just one.
Photo from Pixabay
