Unconscious Consumption

After dinner Saturday night, my little sister Gina was helping out by washing the dishes. The faucet ran full blast as she took her time washing individual forks. She held the rinsed fork in the air, far from the rushing water, as she talked with my mom before putting it in the dishwasher. The sound of the wasted water irritated me and I said, "Gi, turn off the water." "Why?" she shouted back with some Jersey girl attitude. "Because you're wasting water." "WhatdoyoumeanI'mwastingwater. Whydon'tyoudothedishes. We'renotinGuatemalaorwhereeveryouwere. I'mnotgonnaturnoffthewatereverytwoseconds," she spat back. I backed down, realizing I was foolish for picking this little fight and that a talk about overconsumption was probably best saved for another time. What scared me, though, was how unconsciously she did it, how set it was in her modus operandi, and how it points to a larger societal ill.

A common critique of Americans is that we overconsume. We drive cars with poor gas mileage back and forth from homes that are too big where we use more water per day than anyone else in the world.

We've all heard, either from our parents or someone else's, "Finish your food. There are children starving in Africa." If you were a little smartass like me, you would've responded, "Yeah, but they wouldn't eat this food either way." For me, as with all things in life, it's about awareness and gratitude. We have enough food and water that we can literally throw them both away and our lives will go on smoothly. What does that say about us? What does that say that my little sister leaves the water running? That we have so much and do not demonstrate the least bit of awareness nor gratitude for these blessings? It says that we don't give a shit. And why don't we give a shit? Apathy? Insecurity? Are we too lazy to care or too scared? I know, it seems like I'm too hung up on something as trivial as an open faucet, but it's the trivial, little moments all strung together that comprise our lives. They are what matters, and if we treat them like leftovers to be thrown away, well, we'll find our lives in that over-stuffed Glad bag along with them.