Last year, I made a new year’s resolution and actually kept it. I’m surprised. (And proud of myself.) It was an easy one but it stuck.
I decided last year to make my bed every day. It sounds simple but studies have shown that making your bed each morning promotes emotional regulation, and productivity.
I’m not sure if I was more productive this year or had more emotional regulation, whatever that means, but I did find it calming to see my bed neat and it did encourage me to keep the rest of my room tidy.
I think choosing a resolution that was attainable was also satisfying. I also beat the New Year’s resolution odds.
Past studies and surveys have concluded that, by February, as many as 80 per cent of New Year’s resolutions will have been abandoned.
Experts say that in order to keep a goal, it must be measurable, clear and specific. It also helps to make a resolution relevant. It has to matter to you and it has to be done for the right reasons.
This year, I am going to make my resolution to stop buying into fast fashion.
Fast fashion has been defined as inexpensive clothing produced rapidly by mass-market retailers in response to the latest trends.
I’m guilty of buying my children clothes online that are cheap and usually come from places such as China. I’m not judging anyone who buys their kids’ clothing from places like these websites for the affordability factor. But I was filling their drawers with so much because it was so cheap. I couldn’t close any of my daughters’ drawers.
Pop-up ads for super cute things would flash across my screen and I often got sucked in. My kids do not need any more clothing.
I recently did a massive purge and made some donations to the second-hand store in town.
The problem with fast fashion is the mass production of cheap, poor-quality, disposable clothing. According to Pebble Magazine, the fashion industry churns out 80 billion garments a year. That’s over 10 for every person on earth. And it’s 400 per cent more than it produced 20 years ago. It is so hard on the environment and it is not sustainable. It contributes to deforestation, water usage, and greenhouse gases.
The other issue with fast fashion is that it contributes to inhumane human rights practices. In order for companies to be able to afford to have such low prices, they use cheap labour overseas in countries that have lax labour laws such as India, Ethiopia, and Bangladesh.
These workers suffer through unbearably long hours with little to no pay in extremely hazardous working conditions. Between 2006 and 2012, more than 500 garment factory workers died due to factory fires.
This year, I’m pledging to not buy any fast fashion. First of all, I’m going to try not to over-buy clothes in general. But if I need anything for myself or my children, I’m going to keep my dollars local and buy better quality pieces.
I’m also going to do more shopping at our thrift stores and used pieces on our local buy and sell pages.
I know this will be a hard habit to break, knowing I can buy it somewhere else cheaper, but it will be easier if I remember that I am helping the environment and hopefully encouraging better labour laws in other countries.
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@MariscaDekkema
marisca.bakker@interior-news.com
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