What next?
The pandemic has forced me to think about what I want to pass on to my kid for a better future.
Last year, when the pandemic struck, I remember a colleague saying this will last only 15 days in India. I remember thinking how wrong he was. It will surely go on for at least three to four months I said to myself. How terribly wrong was I too. A year has passed, and COVID-19 infects, maims, kills and continues to thrive among us. Never has our generation seen the large-scale mayhem that we are witnessing today. None of us had been prepared for this. The future is uncertain. Few years down the line, our children in all possibility will pin the blame on us. For what we did yesterday has affected their today and tomorrow. COVID-19 is our own making. There is no guarantee that an event of this scale will not happen again. Short-term thinking has led us to this ruin. Boring long-term planning is the only way we can survive. We must change. Let’s start at home.
I am trying to teach myself a few things that will transform my life in a small but meaningful way. You can have them too and most importantly pass them on to your kids.
Rethink my energy consumption
I have always been fascinated by sustainable energy. In 2013, I took a small course on Coursera on Global Sustainable Energy: Past, Present and Future. ‘Peak oil’ was one of the topics that we learnt about and I remember people being in denial about the depleting fossil fuels. It taught me what all components constitute the energy system at my house, how to measure my energy consumption, how to save every bit of energy and how I can go completely off-grid. Well, I have not implemented one bit of what I learnt at home. Part because I was lazy. Part also because India has not reached a stage where every individual can easily walk up to a shop, buy some equipment, install it and declare themselves energy independent. You must be that highly passionate about it to push the line. It is my feeling that this generation will however be forced to rethink their energy consumption. Climate change alone will contribute to this change in a big way. So, I am giving my memory a jog with a course on sustainable energy consumption and maybe implement some of the learnings from it. You can do learn about it too. Here is a list of courses on Coursera.
Grow my own food at home
When I was a kid, dining out was a big occasion. On salary day, we would wait for dad to come back from the office and take us to the restaurant. All to order pav bhaji. Today, Zomato and Swiggy have spoiled us for choice. Eating out is no big plan. The more the demand for food, the more we will produce. Producing large amounts of food also means we will utilise fertile land more aggressively and will ultimately be left with little of it to cultivate in the future. One long-term solution is to produce your own food, no matter how little it is. Start with the humble lemon and then perhaps set up your own terrace garden. There are a lot of organisations that teach producing food at home. One unpopular opinion is to reduce the consumption of meat as producing meat takes massive amounts of water as well as human and land resources. I have made a small start with producing my own curry leaves. It is not doing that well, but I am sure this will change for me and my family’s future. Here are a couple of organisations that teach you how to do farming at home.
Embrace the 3R’s of living
One of my friends has the habit of repairing stuff. He either finds a repair shop or gets the right parts to fix the product himself. It could be his shoe or his iron box. It is not the same with me. Globalisation has made buying stuff cheaper than spending time repairing them. Ecommerce platforms add fuel to the consumption fire. Soon, we will be forced to use products made from low-quality materials due to this undying thirst for new stuff. There is one simple, cheap and satisfying solution though – repair, reuse and recycle, or the 3R’s of living. Can you recycle used water? How about making rugs from used clothing? Get that phone repaired instead of buying a new one. Shunning large-scale consumption, learning from do-it-yourself videos and selling old stuff to your local scrap dealer will help you maintain a balance in life, something that you must pass on to your kid. They not only will help your kid save a lot of money but also assist them to lead a satisfying life.
As a parent, these are some of the simplest and easiest life hacks I am trying to learn and teach my kid too. What do you think about these ideas? Would you want to take them up, or are you okay living the way you are right now? Share your thoughts in the comments section.
#ParentingGuide Guidelines for parents on how to take care of their child from the Indian Association of Pediatrics