I have always been a very high strung person. I do not handle stress well and I can get very emotional very quickly, and people have always told me to try meditation. I have never been able to successfully do it on my own, but in my Wicked Problems class I had no issue at all. We did a mindful meditation, and it was incredibly relaxing. The exercise made me very aware of myself and my surroundings in a very peaceful way. I was able to become completely relaxed and become more mindful. Speaking of being mindful and aware of myself and my surroundings Marc Cohen gave an incredible TED talk about wellness. He spoke about wanting to teach wellness as an academic discipline. He also touched on the fact that you cannot be happy unless you are well and to be well in yourself the environment must also be well. Also something that Marc said that really stayed with me is that the more well you are the better you handle stress. I believe that the more mindful I live my life the better my life will be.

I have enjoyed learning more about fast fashion and the affects that it has on the environment. It has inspired me in my future career to help change this. I still don’t know how exactly I will do it, but it is in the works. Something that I do think I can help with is helping people that are less fortunate than me. This past week I learned that people in poverty do not care very much about sustainability, because it is not a main focus for them. Most poor people have to think about where their next meal is coming from, and they could not care less about recycling or boycotting brands that mass produce fast fashion. However I can help by volunteering my time at homeless shelters or picking up trash.

I watched another TED talk by this woman named Layla that had many great points about the environment and its systems. She talked about plastic and other techno nutrients and how you use the material determines the environmental impact, and all things do in fact come from nature. She also spoke about the complex systems of the Earth including: people, products, planet and human, industrial and ecological. Layla said that the only way to live a truly sustainable life is to interlock these systems. We have to learn to do more with less. In my future career in fashion I hope to be a sustainable yet fashionable person. I hope that I can prove that less is in fact more, even in fashion. In a world where whoever has the most stuff basically wins at life, I hope that I can help to change that narrative.