I have struggled in the past with being mindful. Sometimes I can find it hard to enjoy or even just experience a moment because my mind won’t stop racing. Recently I went to a concert to see my very favorite artist perform. I had been looking forward to the concert for nearly a year, and when the day finally came, I couldn’t believe that it had. For some reason I was too focused on making the day perfect instead of just enjoying it, and I really don’t recall anything that happened during the concert. I wasn’t in the right head space. I usually have a very detailed memory of everything, so when my friends asked me what my favorite part of the concert was, I was shocked when I realized I didn’t remember anything that had happened. My head felt cloudy and kind of cluttered, and I was sad I didn’t enjoy it like I thought I would. A few months before the concert, I had started using an app called Headspace for meditation. I thought that the app was good, but I don’t think that I realized the power of being mindful.Ever since the concert, I realized that in order to enjoy life for what it actually is I needed to take being mindful more seriously. So, when we meditated in class, I really enjoyed it.

I feel like many people have misconceptions about meditation. For starters, many people believe that meditation is about the absence of thought, and they think that the goal is to have no thoughts in your brain. However, mindful meditation is not about pushing away thoughts, it is about noting the thoughts that do pass through your mind. By practicing mindful meditation, it allows us to be mindful in our everyday lives.

I especially enjoyed the reading “Mindfulness and Sustainability.” I knew that being mindful could increase our quality of life mentally, but I never realized how being mindful can also effect our physical world. In the reading it talks about how practicing mindfulness can allow us to be more aware of our surroundings and our actions. Being sustainably mindful can be as small as recycling a plastic bottle if you normally don’t recycle. You note that you have a plastic bottle, and you realize that it would be better if you recycled it instead of throwing it in the trash. The first step is noting, and the next step is taking action.

I also enjoyed the Wildest Thing activity. I think it is important for us to move past just voicing our concerns, which is why I particularly liked the second half of the worksheet, where we get to dream up solutions to the problems. I think a lot of people talk about changing things, but they never really move forward. A specific problem that I am interested in is the popularity of fast fashion. This is what I have chosen to research for activity 2. I love to watch youtube videos about fashion and gain inspiration from influencers. A lot of times, these influencers will film “hauls,” which just means they buy a lot of clothes at a time, try them on, and review them. However, I can’t help but notice that in a lot of these influencer “hauls” they are buying from fast fashion brands such as SHEIN, ZAFUL, and ROMWE. This got me thinking about the impact that this must have on the environment. These brands use up non-renewable resources, emit huge amounts of greenhouse gasses, and use huge amounts of energy- yet these so-called “influencers” are here promoting brands like these to their young and impressionable audiences. I am super passionate about this topic, and I can’t wait to learn more about it for my investigative report!