Welcome to Good Footprints
musings at the crossroads of curiosity, creativity and sustainability.
Hi! My name is Jennifer.
I’m obsessed with light, trees, trains, and the concept of and-ness in life.
And-ness as in: I believe big corporations have a responsibility to confront the climate crisis — and — I believe we have power, individually and in aggregate, to drive change towards sustainability with our choices, purchases and with lives.
And… that these things influence each other (capitalism responds to consumer demand, after all).
And… it’s from that particular and-ness that Good Footprints was born.
Just over three years ago (2019), I’d had enough of investing my dollars in big-oil every time I filled my tank. I moved into a tiny studio apartment (in a LEED certified building) close to a transit hub, and got rid of my car. I didn’t know if it was possible to live in Denver without wheels (an electric vehicle wasn’t an option in a giant building and only two EV chargers), but I was determined to find out.
And then something interesting happened.
I started walking a whole lot more.
I got healthier. Felt more grounded. My blood pressure lowered as I experienced less (no) angry-driver induced stress. No more guilt over buying gas or turning my ignition key and knowing I was burning fossilized trees. No more parking tickets or forgetting where I parked my car or worrying if that car alarm was mine. Even paying for buses and trains, my monthly expenses dropped dramatically.
But the must surprising part of this shift was less quantifiable.
I became more curious. Far more engaged in my neighborhood. I watched changes in flora and fauna along my daily commutes. I started to learn the patterns of hawks soaring over the city, the song of finches and the cheeky audacity of squirrels in Riverfront Park. And the seasonal and hourly shifts of light and shadow became sources of wonder.
Hedonic adaptation is the idea that we are infinitely good at adapting to events and environment, for better and for worse.
A negative side-effect manifests when we no longer see our surroundings. It’s one of the reasons we love travel — new settings trigger our brains to see with fresh eyes.
BUT… we don’t actually need to leave our home to see something new.
We can learn to engage in slow-looking and become tourists even in our familiar surroundings.
Which brings me to my purpose here:
to invite resistance to hedonic adaptation by re-centering attention on little moments of beauty in your every day life
to foster the leap from giving attention to those small moments, to becoming curious, falling in love and triggering empathy to protect the planet which generously provides those moments
to offer suggestions for living with greater intention regarding our impact on each other, the environment (from hyper-local to global), and the climate
AND… it’s my hunch that these are feedback loops for each other.
“Paying attention to things is how we show love.” — Frank, The Last of Us
Not only does attention show love, it triggers curiosity. Curiosity leads to empathy. And empathy, in its purest form, leads to action.
This is a loop in which I want to live. And if you’re here, my guess is that you do too. So let’s cultivate an eye for beauty in our every day surroundings. Let’s pay attention, live in curiosity, find wonder and act from empathy.
Let’s walk in each other’s good footprints.
Jennifer
PS — as I’m also a photographer, all photos across all posts are captured by yours truly (unless otherwise noted). Please contact me to license any imagery.
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Keep leaving those good footprints, my friends!
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