Yesterday, I published a blog post called 'The 80% Rule (How to Let Go of Perfectionism and Use Your Time More Effectively)'. Please read that post first if you haven't already as this post won't make full sense without it.
About 2 years ago, I started to become very passionate about the plastic pollution crisis. I went on a quest to stop buying single use plastics. I thought that the ultimate answer was to live a life completely void of single use plastics and to campaign to encourage others to do the same and to push the government and big companies to make the changes that are needed.
But then I started learning about climate change too. And veganism. I felt overwhelmed because I realised I could never live a life that had no footprint in all of these areas. That would take too much time.
It takes time because we live in a world that asks us to buy plastic, that asks us to eat animal products. Buying vegan food that isn't wrapped in plastic can require going out of our way to learn new recipes, visit different shops, cook more food from scratch instead of buying pre-made meals.
So I had to ask myself a very difficult question, 'Do I want to live a life entirely free from single use plastics or do I want to have the biggest positive impact for sustainability that I can have?'. And trust me this was difficult because the perfectionist in me wanted to choose the first option.
And this was where I realised that the 80% rule came in. I can have a much bigger impact by doing all of these things to an 80% standard instead of trying (and probably failing) to do one thing perfectly.
Let's plot this on a graph because I am nothing if not a nerd who is convinced by mathematical analogies (albeit tenuous).
This is what it would look like if we devoted all of our time and energy related to sustainability to one issue, applying the learning curve logic talked about in the previous post.
However, applying the 80% rule, we see that our time can be used much more effectively if we tackle many different issues imperfectly instead of trying to tackle one perfectly.
With this in mind, I am forgiving myself when I buy tofu wrapped in plastic and I hope people will allow me to talk about these environmental issues without calling me hypocritical when I do not live a life that has no footprint.
People should also think about this before jumping to accuse people who drive to climate strikes or attend them and then buy fast food of just jumping on a bandwagon or wanting an excuse to have a day off of school.
While on this subject, I also want to talk about activism. I strongly remember attending a climate change panel and hearing one of the speakers say, 'It is more important to encourage your friends to also become vegan, than to worry about what type of plant milk you are drinking.'.
I think this idea of the 80% rule helps to explain exactly what he meant. It may be easier for a person to switch to a diet that is largely vegan than for someone who already eats a largely vegan diet to switch to a wholly vegan diet. Therefore it may be better for the planet to eat a largely vegan diet and to focus on activism than to try to eat a wholly vegan diet yourself. (To clarify, this is not because it is okay morally to eat a small amount of animal products, but because we live in a world where currently it can be very difficult not to, and that is not our fault.) As before, please keep this in mind before judging the validity or hypocrisy of activists and their messages.
And remember that if your mission is to do the most good that you can do, then that may not look like doing one thing perfectly, but instead doing lots of things imperfectly.
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