My Radical Lifestyle

I do not think of myself as a radical woman. I am not on the front lines of a protest every day. I am not vegan. I don’t read 50 books a year or belong to a co-op. I am weird and simple person. And perhaps that is the most radical thing about me.

I have made a lot of small decisions in my life that people are shocked by. To me, these decisions seems practical. Perhaps the true radical act is radical consistency between your actions and beliefs.

Here are a few small decisions I’ve made that seem to rub people the wrong way.

1. Amazon

I don’t shop on Amazon. When I was in college I ordered textbooks from Amazon, if I couldn’t find a cheaper rental or used edition elsewhere. Because I didn’t have a credit card of my own, I used my parents’ credit card and paid them back. I didn’t create a habit of ordering items from Amazon.

Since college I think the only other Amazon purchase was a wedding gift off a registry that Amazon would ship to my friend overseas.

What’s the deal with me and Amazon? I don’t like Amazon. I don’t like Jeff Bezos. I don’t think they treat their employees well and I think they steal practices from other vendors on their website, undercut them, and put them out of business.

So what have I done about this? I don’t shop on Amazon. This has never seemed radical to me–maybe it’s because I don’t do a ton of online shopping in general. I’m a lady who prefers to shop in-person. If I can get an item off Facebook marketplace or at a second-hand store, I will!

2. Fast Food

I don’t like fast food, so I try to not eat fast food. Yes, it is cheap. Does it fill me up and make me feel good? Not usually. Some fast foods have a weird taste and make me feel greasy. Over time, the less fast food I’ve eaten, the less it has appealed to me. While it can be cost effective and convenient, I’m lucky to be at a point in my life where the deal and convenience doesn’t outweigh the lack of benefits.

Do I think fast food is evil or the worst thing a person could do? No! Do I have an In-N-Out burger on occasion? Of course! Can I bake dinner for about the same cost with better products? The answer is usually yes.

3. Bus

People in LA will get angry when you say you took the bus. There is actual vitriol in their voice. Real anger. Have they ever taken the bus? Maybe…maybe not. In my opinion, the more people we get riding the bus, the better the bus gets. Why stigmatize people who ride the bus?

Lucky for me, I live on major bus lines. I work in-office once a week and usually take the bus downtown to do so. My coworkers have expressed their concern with my choice of transportation. My coworkers also arrive frazzled, if not angry, from the drivers on their car commute. Weird things can happen on the bus but more often than not, they don’t. I arrive to my office calm because I’ve had a walk and time on the bus to read my book.

4. Meat

I don’t buy beef for my home kitchen.

I am not vegan or vegetarian. I am an omnivore. That said, I don’t think we need to be eating meat at every meal. Lots of foods have the proper nutrients we need.

I also know how inefficient it is to raise beef, so I don’t buy beef for my home. I eat beef on occasion when I’m out and about but this has reduced my consumption by implementing this one little rule. Not a radical shift, but a little shift.

5. Soda

I don’t drink soda.

This radical item is not my choice, but my body’s choice. I can’t have bubbly drinks like soda due to my acid reflux (I assume). Bubbly drinks cause me to burp an inordinate amount and through my nose in a very painful way, so I don’t drink soda.

This is fine because most sodas aren’t good for your health anyway. I remember the day in health class where we saw the amount of sugar in each can of Coke. It’s something like 40 grams. Puts your grandmother’s cookies to shame.

I’m glad I’ve never liked soda. And that’s something I can’t say publicly because people find this to be one of the most radical things about me.

7. Clothing

I love getting good deals on clothing. I would find a shirt at H&M for $3.50 and tell everyone who complimented me exactly how much I paid.

In recent years I’ve had to ask myself why a new shirt at a store costs $3.50. If you’ve ever sewn, you know fabric isn’t even that cheap. Sure, most garments are made overseas but who is making them? Slave labor.

The fast fashion industry runs on unethical labor practices. I’ve put limitations on where I can shop to stop supporting fast fashion companies with my money. If I can chose where my money goes, I would prefer it to be elsewhere. And I can still get good deals on clothing when I thrift.

8. Books

I’ve largely stopped buying books.

There was nothing I liked more than buying books. I loved having a bookshelf full of interesting literature. But am I rereading many of these books? Nope! Guess what? You can get books at the library for free. Free! If I want to read it again, I’ll place a hold on the book again. Easy as that.

There are a few books I still buy, especially ones I’ll use as a reference. There are some books I can’t get at the library. But most the time, my purchased books are just to show off what I read and that’s not cool, it’s pretentious.

9. TV

I don’t watch a ton of TV. I think everyone could stand to watch less TV. I could go a couple weeks without watching TV and not notice. I’ve got other things going on!

I also don’t own a TV. That shocks people more than I think it should. It’s not revolutionary of me. Or maybe it is because people who fought the American Revolution didn’t have TVs either. I can watch TV on my computer or my projector if I would like to. Not having a TV is cool, if you ask me.

10. Recycling

Sometimes people here in LA think I’m a hippie because I recycle. What really makes me a hippie-Oregon-girl is saving all my used glass jars in case I make jam. Recycling is way more normal.

11. Bags

One of the hardest things on this list is bringing my own bags to the grocery store. This is a real practice of consistency. I would have used at least a hundred plastic bags last year had I not brought my own reusable grocery bags.

There is a personal convenience to using a plastic bag at the grocery store but it is not convenient for the earth. Bringing a bag or two to the store is easy. There have been times I didn’t have them with me where I have carried my items out in my arms or I’ve used a store-provided plastic or paper bag.

I don’t like the times I’ve used plastic bags but the cool thing about plastic bags is that you can still take them back to the store and use them again. It’s not illegal to do that or anything!

12. Music

I switched from Spotify to Tidal as my music streaming service. While all music streaming services don’t pay that well, I want to use a streaming service that pays artists best.

To make $100 from Spotify, an artist would have to get 42,000 streams. It’s around 8,000 on Tidal. Neither option is good but one is far worse than the other. And because I’m on a family plan, I pay less than I did for Spotify and the artists get paid more. Nice!

Please remember people pay good money for a painting or a graphic design print at the store. Musicians are paying producers and other musicians to help create a song that will likely only generate a small fraction of what they paid to create it. Interesting…

12. Phone

I’m not some sort of saint who doesn’t use a smart phone. I’m on my phone more than I’d like to admit. Still, I have a few radical rules I’ve put in place to help me.

First, my text alerts are silenced. Freshman year of high school I got a phone and used the vibrate setting for texts. Suddenly I was feeling phantom vibrations and I thought to myself, “that can’t be healthy.” I’ve been on silent mode since.

Second, I don’t get alerts from Instagram. When I got a smart phone my senior year of high school, I was constantly checking my notifications to see who had liked my post. This also felt unhealthy, so I turned off all my Instagram notifications that year and have never looked back. Sorry if I don’t message you back right away — I just don’t get the alerts!

Third, I’ve begun sleeping with my phone across the room. What am I going to do with my phone in the night? Stay up late watching it? Check it first thing in the morning? Phones are overwhelming and not how I want to wind down or wind up. I read and journal before going to bed and after waking up.

13. Social Media

I take a weekly break from all social media. On my Instagram bio it says: “Closed on Sundays.” That isn’t some cute joke (although it is hilarious), it is the actual hours of my account. It’s nice to take a break and reset. Maybe you don’t use social media but for those of us that do, scheduling off time is a good practice.

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This might seem like a lot to implement. It would be a lot to implement if you made this many decisions in one day. They were small decisions made over time.

Most of them aren’t hard and fast rules. It’s not like I’ve banned buying books or never bought a fast fashion item. I think the most radical thing is that I think about these things and make small decisions to be better than I was yesterday. Over time, they don’t feel like decisions because they have become lifestyle habits.

Here’s to being radical!