Creating a Community of No Driving

This last step for me for the SBC has been the best step so far. It is so much easier to see the posts of my fellow classmates that are sharing the same experiences and challenges as I am with my change of behavior.

As I read all of my group members’ posts and comments I see all of the similar challenges and rewards that we are all going through. My group members are realizing that it is much easier than they thought about either not driving their car around campus or reducing the fishing limits and cleaning the fishing area. Ted mentioned that a man said something to him about what he was doing and really appreciated what he was doing and that is a good step forward, but we need to get more people involved. A difference is that John does not have his car on campus and I do have my car on campus. John says that it is not hard to change his behavior about not driving on campus, but for me having my car makes it much tougher. I am still doing a good job with resisting and walking instead, but it is much harder for me. I really think that John, Ted, and I have very similar barriers, tactics for change, and experiences and looking at their blogs and comments have encouraged me to keep working on my behavior to make sure I do not let them down and drive my car when I do not need to.

Having a sustainable behavior change has made me realize that most of the challenges and experiences that other people are facing are common with me. This shows that we have different behavior changes but similar experiences. We are all going through similar struggles. I have been reliant on using my car for transportation and it is difficult to break the habit. Reading John’s blog posts in my SBC community also makes me realize that I could be doing more what John is doing and not even having my car on campus to make things easier for me. Having a community influenced the way I view my experiences in the sustainable behavior challenge by making me think that I can do more and I can influence more people by telling them about my behavior change and trying to spread my word about walking everywhere on campus instead of driving everywhere. Having a community to help really helps make this behavior change a bigger success in our community. Forming these communities at the beginning instead of the end would have helped to give ideas and strategies before the behavior change to be more successful. With everything I said, I really hope that everyone will continue with their behavior changes so my community can help support me and give me help to continue my behavior change in not driving my car and reducing CO2 emissions in the future. The community really influenced my experiences in the sustainable behavior challenge.