I was recently talking with a delightful woman about a challenge she overcame with a simple mindset tweak. She is a self-proclaimed “nature lover” and always wants to do right by the planet. But when her landlord told her they’d be testing an optional compost system for the building, she said “no thanks.”


Why would someone say “no” to an initiative that would save 103 pounds of food waste from the landfill each year?


Because all the brain heard was “change” and change = hard.
Then preprogrammed thoughts filled her head like… 

The first memory of Earth Day is saved in vivid technicolor. I was 12 years old, and my aunt and her friends took me into NYC for the festivities. At the beginning, I felt pure joy at the idea that the thousands of people walking the streets were like me. They too loved the earth and wanted to take care of her. I was not alone!


But as the day wore on, I noticed a lot of garbage on the ground and got really confused. How could all these nature lovers get together and leave a mess? It was literally the opposite of the day’s intention! 

“The pen is mightier than the sword.”  - Edward Bulwer-Lytton

The first time I heard it I was like, “Oh daumm, so true!” 
Words have the power to heal, incite wars, make people fall in love. And, most unfortunately, to exert power and enforce the dominance of few while suppressing many. 

You may have noticed that I rarely offer a yes-or-no stance on cultural misappropriation, in part because it’s a super complex, gray area type of situation. 

Are there some things that are 100% obviously taboo? Absolutely! 
Like black-face. Wrong. Uh-uh. No way. 

Other things may feel a little more obscure to some folks, while being extremely obvious to others.