Basic 5: Numero Dos: Energy and Fuel

TAI BLOG #11: BASIC 5, NUMERO DOS: ENERGY and FUEL

In the last episode of this ‘As of Yet Unnamed Blog’ (competition to commence soon), we began the ‘what can I do’ BIG BASIC 5 discussion, listing the below concepts as typing points of awareness:

1. Waste and Conservation

2. Fuel and Energy

3. Water

4. Go Local

5. HEALTH of SELF

For an episodic reminder, give a quick scan to the last blog, which focused on ideas concerning waste and conservation in your every day life (as opposed to that every other day life you sometimes somehow inhabit).

But today, oh seekers of information, awareness, and better living strategies, today we shall run the gamut of fuel and energy. Where does it all come from, does it matter, do I care, and can it be created or destroyed? I’ll attempt to answer most of these questions ;)

Energy is a necessity of life. On an elemental level, our bodies need it. On a grander level, it runs our world. Our cars, our phones, our lights; our refrigerators, our ovens and stoves, our home heating and cooling systems; our computers, our construction, our businesses, our military, our food supply, our communication systems, our government … take that last one as you will.

So how much do we, as individuals, know about this element that is so necessary to our lives? Well, Wikipedia I’m sure has pages, but many of us plug in that cell phone charger without actually knowing from whence that juice is flowing!

Let’s break it down! Anyone that just conjured up a break dance move…is my new hero. Energy can be ‘broken down’ into two categories: renewable and non-renewable. Renewable sources include solar power, wind power, hydroelectric power, ways of generating energy that can be done again and again. I know this is a big fat ‘DUH’ for many of you out there, but this distinction is important!

Non-renewable energy sources are basically fossil fuels, which include coal, petroleum, and natural gas. Fossil fuels are basically ancient previously living entities that have been compressed for a gazillion years and have formed energy sources…just like the name says! These sources of energy are the ones that release greenhouse gases with use, namely CO2. Booooo, hissssss! 

Nuclear energy is also a non-renewable energy source, however it DOES NOT create greenhouse gases…but can potentially make the whole world glow colors that we could undoubtedly appreciate with our seven eyes.

So the reality of the situation is that when we consider the whole shebang: transportation, industry, electricity, heating, etc., we as the USA get 38% of our total energy from petroleum, 25% of our energy from natural gas, 21% of our energy from coal, 9% of our energy from nuclear, and the other 8% from renewable resources (solar, wind, hydroelectric, biomass, and geothermal).

TOTAL ENERGY!!!                         SOURCES OF ELECTRICITY!!!                       

Petroleum                        37.33%                         Coal                          44.4%

Natural Gas                     24.73%                         Natural Gas                  23.3%

Coal                                20.92%                         Nuclear                               20.2%

Nuclear                           8.84%                           Hydroelectric                       6.9%

Biomass                         4.10%                            Renewable                           3.6%

Hydroelectric                  2.83%                           Petroleum                            1.0%

Wind, Geothermal,          1.25%

            and Solar

*These numbers taken from a 2009 survey from the Energy Information Administration

These two lists tell us a lot! Americans use more petroleum than any other power source, pointing (with a harsh finger I might add) at our obsession and total reliance on the automobile.

Also, because fossil fuels make up our top three (technically four) sources of energy, we are creating greenhouse gases up the wazzoooo! Additionally, our electricity in this country is primarily generated from coal. When you plug that computer/cell phone/toaster oven into the nearest outlet, just remember that somewhere a little piece of coal just let off a touch of CO2 for you.

ON TO THE POSITIVE UPBEAT PORTION!

Ok, so now that we are AWARE (because remember, it’s all about awareness right?), let’s talk about what we can do! Hurrah!

First and foremost, one word: CONSERVE!

Before we get into the nitty-gritty, let’s be upfront. We (Americans) use too much. We require more energy per person than any other nation. We are surrounded by information that tells us where our energy is coming from (Middle East and destructive mining techniques), what effect it’s having on our environment (very bad) and on our national security/political system (also very bad). And yet, we need need need and use use use use and shun change change change!

I think that energy is America’s drug addiction. We know that using it is bad and hurts those around us; we know that it’s expensive and draining our wallets; we know that there are other options out there, but yet we just keep using!

So the first step in recovery: CUT BACK!

I’m not suggesting that anyone out there go cold turkey…a little won’t kill ya…I mean the world ;)

There are heaps of ways we can all cut down on the amount of energy we’re using. Let’s take it one fossil fuel at a time. 

Petroleum! Because petroleum is used primarily for vehicles of transportation, we need to figure out how we can make the biggest cuts in or alterations to our transportation needs.

Here’s a short list of ideas to decrease your personal transportation energy consumption:

*Ride your bike or walk to work/school/the store                        *Take public transit

*Park your car once a week                                                            *Carpool

*Map out your errands to decrease distance                                 *Shop locally

If you want to get fancy with your petrol-awareness, take it to the next level! Decrease your own energy consumption AND that of your goods and services. Don’t buy things that have to be shipped across the country (or the world); get your haircut and your teeth cleaned somewhere near enough you can walk there; buy your food from local farmers’ markets or nearby producers when you can! This last bit has a huge impact as most of our supermarket food is SHIPPED (requiring gasoline) across the country OR across the oceans, relating greenhouse gas emissions to seemingly healthy foods! How nutty!

And when you DO need to fill that tank, purchase your car’s liquid lunch from a gas station that uses oil drilled FROM the US, not oil SHIPPED to a station near you. Because the US only has 2.4% of the world’s ‘proven’ oil reserves, we import 9 million barrels of crude oil each day (choke, gag, sputter)! But here’s the kicker, we actually export 50% MORE refined petroleum than we import.

Below is a slightly unreliable list (snagged it off the web) of gas stations that sell primarily US gasoline.

*Sunoco                        *Conoco                        *Sinclair                        *Valero

*Murphys                        *Hess                           *ARCO                        *BP/Phillips

*That said, BP is a terrible company who continues to contribute to oil spill problems in the Gulf without appropriate clean up. So don’t buy from them either.

Natural Gas! Natural gases are #2 on our list of most used resources, clocking in at nearly 25%.  The majority of natural gas is used in the industrial sector: processing pulp and paper, metals, chemicals, petroleum, plastics, and food. Natural gas also provides the base ingredients for products like plastic, fertilizer, anti-freeze, and fabric.

Aside from buying LESS of these products, there’s not much each individual can do to decrease industrial use. But get ready, 45% of the country’s total natural gas use can be attributed to a combination of electricity and household use. Because we will address electricity more specifically in our Crazy Coal section below, let’s talk about household use!

We use natural gases primarily for heating and cooking in the US. While I could recommend you eat a raw food diet to decrease the gas used in cooking (and likely improve your gut’s daily workout), it seems more practical and effectual to focus on the heating element!

First and foremost, lack of insulation in the home costs Americans hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of extra dollars per person each year. It’s been estimated that most Americans could save 30% on their heating bills if they insulated their homes! So, in order to cut back on your natural gas consumption, here’s a few insulating tips:

*Increase attic insulation                        *Use weatherstripping around windows/doors

*Insulate your basement                        *Use expansion foam for small spaces

*Use window curtains and blinds            *more info at: ezinearticles.com

Additionally, instead of turning up the heat, insulate your body better! I’m not saying you should put on extra pounds for the winter (that is, not fleshy ones), but don’t be bashful about wearing your coat in the house, an extra pair of socks, and a hat! Just think, if insulating your home includes its top, bottom and sides, why should insulating yourself be much different?

In considering the ‘cost’ of these energy products, we must also keep in mind just how they are being extracted from the earth and tag that onto our dollar sign. Natural gas is more and more commonly being sucked from the layers of our earth by a nasty (there’s my subjective voice coming through) process called FRACKING. This method pollutes ground water and air, creating pretty fracking bad health consequences for nearby residents. For more info on fracking, google it OR watch the movie GasLand.

Next up on the chopping…I mean cutting back…block: COAL! This black substance of necessity provides us with half of all our electricity, making it the largest source of power in this country and many others. Let’s take just one moment, one sentence, to address the negative environmental effects of using coal for electricity, so that we may more appropriately link them to our use of electricity. Deep breath…

After we’ve polluted land, water, and air to mine coal, it is shipped (bad word alert) to factories and burned to create electricity, also making smog, soot, acid rain, and global warming, with byproducts including ash, sludge and toxic chemicals…not to mention the billions of gallons of fresh water wasted on cooling. And breathe…

Did I warn you that I love commas and run on sentences? New perspective: instead of thinking about decreasing your electricity consumption, think about decreasing your ‘all of the above bad things with coal’ consumption!

Here’s a few simple ones that bring me back to 80’s public service announcements:

*Turn off lights when you’re not in the room                        *Unplug appliances not in use

*Change light bulbs to energy efficient ones                         *Hang your clothes to dry

*Unplug your computer/phone once it’s charged                  *Take short showers

*Check out this awesome LIST OF TIPS!

Another way to decrease how much power you need is to give a little booster to your already in play appliances. For example, you can build a passive solar water heater (click here for more details) out of reused materials. This will preheat your water before it enters you gas/electric powered water heater, decreasing the amount of power needed to generate a hot shower!

As we can so easily see, none of this is rocket science; but it is creative and changed thinking patterns! Get yo’self outta plaid and into some paisley!

This wee short little blog has addressed awareness and conservation most specifically, but keep in mind that, as we’ve seen, not all energies are created equal. Using renewable resources (like solar and wind) are becoming more and more accessible, not to mention guilt free!

I have been using solar for the majority of my power needs over the past year (I feel suddenly like this is a confession) and I love it! The knowledge that my laptop and phone are running off a renewable energy source (AKA the SUN) is very freeing. Whether it’s a tiny solar phone charger, a solar array on your rooftop, or a wind generator in your backyard…it makes a big difference!

And it’s guilt free. If only they could start making ice cream out of renewable energy resources…for reduced guilt of course ;)

*If you’d like to consult any of the resources I used in this blog that are not linked, shoot me an email and I’d be glad to send them to you.

THE BASIC 5: #1

THE BASICS

EcoJaunt has taken us all over the country; from rooftop farms in Brooklyn to water catchment gurus south of Tucson; we’ve seen a lot. But no matter where we go, be it downtown Portland, Maine or Earth Day Fest in Topanga, California… we always get the same comment/question: Yes, that’s very cool, but what can I do, right now?

So, this blog is dedicated to communicating simple ideas that we should all be aware of and the associated changes that anyone and everyone can make on some level to make their life more sustainable and eco-community-human friendly! Hurrah!

There are five basic principles I’d like to address. Why five? I don’t know, really. Three sounds like not enough and four just doesn’t have a good ring to it. Plus 5 is one of those amazing magical prime numbers that can work wonders (or at least it will be once this post is through!).

In no particular order, they are:

1. Waste and Conservation

2. Go Local

3. Water

4. Fuel and Energy

5. HEALTH of SELF

We’re going to take these slow, one at a time, baby steps…thank you Bill Murray! Today’s winner is….

WASTE/CONSERVATION!

Do you ever think about what happened to that granola bar wrapper, or your disposable coffee cup, or the packaging your i phone came in?

Do you ever ponder how many dollars, gallons of gas, and CO2 emissions could be saved if you parked your car one day per week?

Do you ever wonder how much less energy you’d consume if you unplugged your household items and insulated your windows?

This is not a rant on waste statistics, though the average American does create an average of 4 pounds of trash per day (1460 lbs/year) and uses 544 gallons of petrol each year. But I digress…

This is a rant about awareness! In this wonderful country of America (and that is not a completely sarcastic comment), we don’t have to look at our trash… so we forget it exists. The phrase “out of sight, out of mind” had to come from somewhere!

We are also lucky enough that our energy consumption is completely unlimited. We are not given a battery for the day or told we have a certain number of kilowatts for the month. We aren’t FORCED to conserve energy or be aware of how much we are using because it seems that these things are of unending abundance.

But to become aware of these elements is a whole new realm of vision, an entirely new piece of the puzzle that helps guide decisions. Simply to be aware that each piece of waste created will find its way into a leaky landfill or pollute ground water will help you to identify actions and habits in your life that can be revised for the better… and that’s what we’re shooting for, right?

So what can you do, what are the easy starter pieces? Daily activities are a great place to begin. Anything you do every day will have a greater cumulative impact over the long haul…and I’m pretty sure that’s what we’re in for ;)

Most days of the week, a greater majority of people will go to work, the key word being ‘go.’ How we get there varies entirely, but is another important choice we can make every day. Will this day include a bike ride, a walk, the bus, the train, teleportation, or perhaps a trip in the car? Many of us get stuck in a transportation rut, but we have the choice everyday and there is always the option to choose differently! Yahooo.

Every morning, most of us caffeine addicts will enjoy a cup o joe… and believe you-me, there ain’t nothin’ wrong with that. But, for those enjoying their breakfast brew away from home, there will be a choice to be made. No, not latte or Americano! The choice will be disposable cup or self-brought reusable mug. Do you have to remember it every day? Yeah, you do, but you will save an exorbitant amount of paper cups from being used and trashed each year simply by providing your own black gold receptacle. Simple, check!

Later that day, many of us will do work on a laptop, leaving it plugged in all day and all night, instead of allowing the battery to drain and then recharging it. Computers, particularly when they are not shut down, will suck energy as long as they are plugged in. All appliances do this! Just think of how much energy your toaster has been using all these months that you haven’t even enjoyed a good crunchy bagel!

Around noon-ish, many of our bellies will begin to rumble and make other mysterious noises that incline us towards the all powerful FOOD. Anyone with a grab and go lunch break may end up with a sandwich, a burrito, some amazing Indian cart food, or a burger. All these items will come wrapped in paper, encased in Styrofoam, and include plastic disposable silverware. Lots of room for improvement there! Waste decreasers, UNITE! How difficult would it be to bring your own plate, Tupperware, or just a spoon from home to decrease how many waste products you use each lunch break? Think of how it would be if you had to live with every piece of food packaging that you used: each drink cup, every food box, and paper bag. Lame sauce!

After lunch, do you drink a pick-me-up cup of coffee? …but we’ve been there ;)

After work, you might stop at the store on the way home. Talk about choices; supermarkets are currently a crazy rainbow of marketed packaging whose colors one can so easily get lost in! We could spend 5 pages discussing (do you like how we’re ‘discussing’ now?) the goods and bads of grocery stores, but how about two examples that will point in the right directions.

Picture it: you’re in the snacks aisle grabbing some grub to go in your wee one’s lunch (and perhaps secretly your own). Instead of fruit snacks, you decide to go for the raisins (healthier) in their tiny red boxes wrapped 6 to a bunch in plastic. Choice: do you buy a food item that will create waste each day that a box of raisins is eaten, not to mention to cover wrap around them? OR do you go to the bulk section, where you will not pay for packaging and create much less waste; you can even bring your own reused plastic bag to put your bulk section raisins in for mother earth brownie points!

The raisins inspired you to go for gold and get some fresh fruit. As you peruse the apple section, you notice that all the stickers read ‘New Zealand,’ but that the pears are from the states. When you choose the product from far away, you are basically paying for gasoline and shipping, so here you have another place that you can make the choice to conserve! Plus pears are pretty good.

When you return (commute=choice) home, you and the fam decide what to do about dinner. You’ve made lots of good sustainable choices, so you treat everyone to a dinner out. There are a handful of places within a mile from your house, and being the healthy amazing fantastic mother earth star student that you are, you decide that the family should walk (conserving gasoline) to the local organic food place (again conserving fuel for shipping) and have dinner. It’s delicious, but everyone is stuffed and there are leftovers for days! Instead of accepting the doggie bags of doom, you’ve brought a few Tupperware storage containers from home, man you are getting good at this!

After your walk home (conserving gas and improving health therefore conserving healthcare spending), you stretch out, unplug your already charged laptop, and have a little play time on FaceBook. Since you’re feeling keen on your new ideas, you post a short paragraph about awareness of waste and conservation that your 1300 friends will see and implement in their lives.

Before turning in, you attend to your teeth, shutting the water off while you’re brushing (conserving agua), look in the mirror and say, “You’re one swell looking environmentally savvy person, you are. And tomorrow, you’re going to do even better and get the insulation fixed up so that not so much heat is wasted next winter.”

Everyday is full of opportunities to make better choices and create less waste; little changes make BIG DIFFERENCES!

*****sidebar statistic for your viewing pleasure: The highest point in Hamilton County, Ohio (near Cincinnati) is ‘Mount Rumpke.’ It is actually a mountain of trash at the Rumpke Sanitary Landfill towering 1045 ft. above sea level.

That is nutty.

Sustainable Thought

TAI Blog # who knows, written from The Green Man in Asheville, NC and also Folly Beach, SC
Sustainable Thought: The New New Year’s Resolution

As a preface (see how long my posts are getting, now I have to write prefaces) : If this gets to long and involved for your state of mind, whatever it be, at your time of reading, skip to the last page or so on change and go back later for the tidbits when you’ve got your game face on!

When it comes to sustainability and health, there are so freakin’ many topics to broach! Many have to do with our physical bodies or how our treatment of the world can and does affect us. But this blog began around the idea of thought: what is sustainable healthy thought?

Many things came to mind: positive thought (of course), no long term allowance for repetitive negative thoughts regarding the self, being both open minded and critical towards new ideas, understanding your own general motivations… but when it came down to it, there was one aspect that I felt stood out beyond all the rest in terms of having a healthy attitude.

Drum roll please….!!!!....

Oh geez, now I’ve built it up!

I believe that the more a human acts in congruence with his thoughts, the better he will feel about himself and his life, hence, sustainable thought!

The more you can align your actions with your thoughts, the better you will feel. It is when these things are in conflict that we start to have self doubt and insecurity. When we live in accordance with our ideals, that is when we are confident and comfortable with who and how we are!

Now, you’re saying to yourself, big fat DUH Morgan. And I totally agree! Big fat duh, but then why do so many of us display such hypocrisy on a multitude of levels?!?

This is what my brain and its own self discussion and analysis of the situation set to find out.

***If you’re not on board with me yet, still battling the idea that we all live within some element of hypocrisy between thought and action, let me provide a few simple examples:

Thoughts/Ideals

Ø Oil companies are corrupt and driving pollutes our air
Ø We need more jobs here in the USA. Companies should stop sending jobs overseas
Ø Eating fast food is unhealthy

Contradictory Actions

Ø Driving to work, the store, or anywhere you need to go
Ø Buying things made outside the USA (electronics, clothing, food)
Ø Feeding yourself or your family fast food for dinner

(This, of course, assumes you’re not predisposed towards the destruction of yourself and the world at large…just checking! )

Perhaps you don’t fit into any of the above examples (clearly you are angel, but should read on in order to assist your friends who might find this plight applicable).

So pause (insert 60 minutes into your day, magical time travel style) and just think about your actions thus far in the day. If you’re lucky it’s morning and far fewer infractions will have occurred ;)

Now that we acknowledge the existence of these silly mismatches that occur between our thoughts and actions, let us dissect a bit to find some possible sources for this insanity!

Really, we’ve got two possible options to pick apart; it’s either the thought or the action which hold the flaw. Let’s look at the thought aspect first.

Perhaps your thoughts/espoused ideals don’t match your actions because they’re not really your own or you don’t actually believe that they are true. Maybe you have been coerced into thinking you like to dance, but it’s actually the sociality and human contact you crave and so shakin’ your booty at the club has never been your thing. Maybe you think you like vegetables, but only because the government has now deemed pizza a vegetable.

Certainly, we all do some self-convincing at times and often pretend to think in certain ways, but we also have some false perceptions and motivations behind what we are actually saying.

Ok, now for a meatier, tastier, and likely more necessary analysis: Why is it that our ACTIONS don’t match what we think (now, of course, assuming that what we think is what we actually think we think…you think?)

Divin’ in!

I think one of the biggest reasons that humans act in contradictory ways is fear: of change, of judgment, of work/effort. Hold onto your horses, we’re going in.

We humans often recognize that we should be doing things differently, but we hesitate to change. Why this fear of change? I believe that one component is the effort and work involved with changing a habitual occurrence and honestly, we’ve gotten lazy. But just as great is the psychosocial effect people fear. Changing your action to be better or more in cahoots with what you believe naturally insinuates that you’ve been doing it wrong all this time. Additionally, people fear that others will not understand why they are making a change and worry that they will be judged negatively by those around them…and nobody wants that!

It's also possible we just don't know how to change our actions to match our ideals, but this is less likely than the other possibilities.

Because we spend so much time caught up in the day to day, humans rarely take time out of their lives to truly analyze and inspect who and how they are…nor are we taught that we should! So perhaps it is a complete ignorance of our own hypocritical nature and the inability to truly sense that we are not acting in accordance with the ways we 'think' we should that creates our hypocrisy. So many of us act out of sync with the ideals we would vehemently proclaim, but do we even realize?

Be it the golden rule, thoughts about the economy or nutrition, or how you should raise your children, hypocrisy runs rampant in our society. Runs I tell you!

While some of these are likely more obvious (like the examples I gave earlier), many are more discrete… not perhaps so much so that the average American couldn't figure it out given the chance...but perhaps that is a chunk of the problem as well, the lack of thought given to these matters!

I think this lack of self analysis, done to oneself, by oneself, in an objective, non-judgmental fashion plays a huge-mungous role in the hypocrisy of people today. If everyone gave themselves 20 focused minutes each day to sit and go through their day, analyzing each and every action and spoken idea and really thought about just how it is their actions do or don't reflect their words and vice versa, we’d have a different world…or people would just play more video games with their magic 20 minutes and beat Angry Birds Level 27 ;)

So now we are asking the real questions, not only 'AM I HYPOCRITICAL?' and in what way, but also 'WHY AM I HYPOCRITICAL?' This delves deeper than most might care to go, but perhaps that is only because they've never thought that they should ;)

First, (like we said) you must identify in which part of the question your hypocrisy lies: is it the action or the ideal? From there you need to figure out not only where the discrepancy is, but why it exists? Is it a lack of awareness, a feeling of peer pressure to think or act a certain way, laziness or fear of change, a true lack of understanding of what it is you say or how to change your actions?

And how far do you take this?

It is easy to think,
“I believe in humane treatment for animals”
and feed your dog everyday and give him love.

It is easy to think,
”I believe in buying local goods”
and shop at the farmer’s market,
but then more difficult when you want to save 5 dollars on some unfindable item only available from Amazon.com, where you have to use your credit card and the item travels hundreds or thousands of miles to your doorstep…

It is easy to think,
“I believe that all children should have food and shelter”
and feed your kids and tuck them in at night,
but more difficult to deal mentally and volitionally with the knowledge that there are millions of starving children all over the world that could all easily be provided for if our country would allocate our bank bailout money a bit differently…

It is easy to think,
“I believe that saving the environment is important”
and donate to Green Peace and recycle,
but yet more difficult to avoid buying things individually wrapped in plastics that end up in the great trash gyre in the Pacific Ocean or use paper created from Amazonian rainforests being chopped down each day, increasing greenhouse gases and global warming…

It's easy to say,
“I want world peace and no war,”
but harder still not to drive or fly anywhere using oil (the only real reason we've been at war for decades)…

It's easy to say,
“I think our economy sucks because all of our jobs have been exported” (and you'd be right),
but not so easy to buy things only made in the USA, including all clothing, furniture, food, and electronic devices (computers, I-phones, I-pads, cell phones).
It’s easy for me to write this blog and think about all these things, and yet harder to encompass it all into my life. It’s hard for all of us!

So how far do you take this? As far as you can without going bankrupt or mentally insane with social responsibility (both could easily happen...ok not that easily, but beware).

So what can be done? Change. Get over your fear. The peers you think will judge you will see your example and perhaps they too will see how easy it can be and RESPECT you for it. Stop being lazy and implement ideas you have that will bring you more in line with your ideals. This might mean riding your bike or walking more instead of driving. This might mean not buying things that YOU KNOW were made with bad practices or bad business standards. This might mean being more respectful of those around you or raising your kids the way you thought you would. This might mean sacrifice, of time or things or convenience or ego, but none will seem that way once you've found sanctity of mind and realized how easy it is to change your ways to fit your principles.

Plus nothing beats habit. Make a habit of saying hello to everyone you pass and making eye contact, of leaving 15 minutes earlier for work and riding your bike or taking the bus, of only buying things made within your home state, of doing things you've always said you 'wish you could.' It will feel good and in 3 weeks it will seem easy…I don’t know why 3 weeks is the magic number, but apparently it gets to be ;)

Because I believe that repetition is learning, I’ll say it again:

The more you can align your actions with your thoughts, the better you will feel about your daily life and who you are. It is when these things are in conflict that we start to have self doubt and insecurity. When we live in accordance with our ideals, that is when we are truly living the good life! And that’s sustainable!

There are many things in life that take a bit of self discipline, awareness, and consistency. Some would tie a ribbon around their finger, others would send themselves text messages, but I like to have a small personal mantra, something I can conjure up at any moment that will remind me what to do and why, something that will give me a touch of strength: an ACRONYM!

I love acronyms :) but I vow not to completely bore the bejeezus out of you listing all the RAD (Rockstar Amazing Demonstrations) of self-reminder acronyms I came up with! But I will share one: ATTA. Applying Thought To Action. In Hebrew, the word 'atta' (pronounced ah-tah) means 'you' and I thought that was appropriate (not to mention easier to remember).

ATTA: Applying Thought To Action: what we all should all do, what I need to do, a reminder in that split second before the reach, the stride, the credit card swipe. Don't just do what you would do, do what you think you SHOULD do! Make it match.

If I think I can change the world, well I better just go and do it!