Mishmash of Miscellaneous

Welcome to Team Miscellaneous, we are a band of students looking to benefit the environment one out of the box way at a time. Each of us noticed something wrong with our lifestyle with the help of internet resources, roommates, or some serious self evaluation. By brushing our teeth, putting on our sneakers, turning on our laptops, and getting out of bed early, we’re making changes! Who would have thought a college student would opt to get out of bed early to go around and clean up Lafayette’s campus, with no tangible benefit. This voluntary effort wouldn’t give him recognition for a resume or payment in terms of cash, just the satisfaction of doing something good before he started his day… (I guess to be fair his grade did depend on it, but still there are some serious props to be given for dedication like that.)

The barriers some of my team members have encountered interested me because my own barriers have been few and far between. I figured I was the exception to the rule, having such a positive experience in changing my behavior. Unlike some of the others, I found that once I found my routine with my laptop, I encountered virtually zero barriers. There’s the occasionally lack of tech savviness that slows me down in class while taking notes, but I overcome the hiccup quickly enough. Reading through Team Miscellaneous’ posts helped me regain the focus of the sustainable behavior challenge of finding how to best adopt a sustainable behavior.

One continuing theme I noticed of the class is that our sustainable behaviors are sticking so well, because we chose them. We picked each of our behaviors based on a habit that, after evaluation, nagged at us. If the class as a whole had been assigned to different categories arbitrarily I am wiling to bet that seldom of us could have stuck with the challenge. Looking at the community as a whole, not just Team Miscellaneous, interest in our sustainable behavior helps us to stick to it, overcome barriers, and be creative with benefits. Maybe that’s true in terms of society and not just our EVST community. If people have no interest in cutting down on driving, watering their grass less, or using less plastic water bottles, than trying change their behavior is futile. Sparking an interest in the environment and working to decrease ones impact on it through small, obtainable goals is pivotal.