Well, hello there and welcome back. My name is Stephanie Safarian, and you're listening to episode

576 of Sustainable Minimalists. This is a listener-supported show about intentional and

eco-friendly minimalist living. And on today's show, we're shutting out the external noise

and the outside, and we're retreating to our havens, aka our homes. Now let's back up and let's talk

about the first week of January here in the United States. Let's just do it. I had a rough week.

Maybe you did too. It started with my country, the United States, capturing a president of another

nation and inserting itself in this sovereign nation,

all in the pursuit of more oil. And then later in the week, I was absolutely stunned, shocked,

horrified to watch a video of the homicide of Renee Nicole Good at the hands of ICE agent

Jonathan Ross. I personally am living in this perpetual state of dissonance

in which on the one hand, I need to get my daughter to ski club, but on the other, a woman is murdered

in cold blood while backing up her car. Or I'm thinking about how I haven't vacuumed the basement

in three months and it's pretty gross, But oh, by the way, our planet is

burning and everyone in power is actively seeking out more oil, more of what's heating our planet

to irreversible levels, all because we have friends in the fossil fuels industry. Like, what the

heck? I'm increasingly finding it difficult to manage the day-to-day minutia with the big existential concerns that are knocking on my door daily.

And what makes it worse, in my opinion, is not enough people are angry and scared.

We're numb. We're autonomitons. We've lost our ability to have strong opinions.

We've lost our ability to stand up for

what we believe is right. We're too comfy in our lazy boys. And look where our comfort and

convenience culture has gotten us. Look where we are. And so that's where today's conversation

comes in. We've got to know ourselves. We've got to know our values. We've got to stop trying to be like

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