Dust off an old Dream

Thanks again to Nicole Antoinette for shaking up my world yesterday. Her blog post was all about redefining failure. Instead of viewing failure as not achieving our goals, we should view failure as not stating or chasing after your goals in the first place. Hear here!

Nicole suggested you ask yourself these questions (among others), "Who do I want to be?", "What do I want to experience?" and "How can I fully show up for myself?" Each question was it's own summit to climb and I stared at that first question for what probably added up to hours in total.

Of course I wanted to distract myself, to check my emails or walk away, but I sat there and determined not to move until the question was answered. Who do I want to be? Who DO I want to be? Dammit I don't know!

I knew I didn't want to be employed. I think wage slavery is a mugs game I've been playing far too long, but I've never been one of those people who had a talent they could make money from. I have researched a MULTITUDE of home-businesses from sewing to market stalls but never found one that could make a comparable income.

A few years ago I quit my administration job to become a kennel-hand; this was by FAR the closest I had ever been fulfilled by my employment (I love animals), but in the end seeing all the good animals put down every week was too much to bear. At least I found my beloved Winstan there and I managed to save just one.

Winstan lying on Jess

So all I had to go on was: I want to be self employed and I want to help animals. Then the little light bulb went on over my head; although the better analogy would be, then the fog cleared away and I could see the light bulb over my head. You see I remembered rather than realised that I have always wanted to run an animal sanctuary. Big or small, it doesn't matter.

However everyone had always said, "You can't do that, they're money pits" which, of course is true. So I chalked it up to a pipe dream and forgot all about it. Until yesterday.

So here, now, I say to you all. I WILL have an animal sanctuary. And if I don't make it, at least I tried, and then I haven't failed at all.

Cruelty Free Shopping

I’m going grey. I have been for a few years now so it’s no great shock, but I do dye my hair as I’m not quite ready to be as grey as my hair is. I went to the store to find some hair dye but all the brands available do testing on animals. I even tried the chemist which had a larger selection of brands, but the result was the same.

Why is it so hard to purchase from a company that doesn’t torture animals? The labels of ALL hair dyes say you need to do a test on yourself before use to make sure your not allergic, so why burn the eyes of bunnies before selling the product? It seems like such an archaic process to test cosmetics and other products on animals; there is no correlation between reactions in animals and reactions in humans anyway?! Scientifically it doesn’t even make sense.

Personally I won’t give money to a company who does animal testing because:

a) keeping animals in laboratories is cruel

b) testing products on animals hurts, harms and kills millions of animals year-round

c) if you hurt your pet it’s assault, if you hurt thousands it’s science

Something is seriously wrong with this picture! How can we hate the idea of someone kicking their dog but be OK with thousands of dogs being tortured to make sure our hair dye is OK?

If you want to find out which brands test on animals then there is a list of websites given below, but you can do a web search for “cruelty free” and the item you want to buy and this will usually bring you the information immediately.

Please comment below and add brands you love, or hate depending on their animal testing credentials.

Australia: http://www.choosecrueltyfree.org.au/ or shop here http://www.crueltyfreeshop.com.au/

Brands that DO test on animals given here: http://www.animalsaustralia.org/features/animal-testing-list.php 

USA: http://www.peta.org/living/beauty-and-personal-care/companies/default.aspx

Cruelty Free Money: put your money where your mouth is

Recently I changed my superannuation fund to Cruelty Free Super, when I realised I had no idea where my super was being invested. Considering how unethical most corporations are you can pretty much assume that any money you have invested is being used to break the little guy and stuff the pockets of the rich (all while ruining our environment).

When you hear about ethical investments I assumed these were for rich people who had money to invest, but I realised that your superannuation (and in fact ANY money you have in a bank) is being invested on your behalf. That’s YOUR money paying for deforestation, sweatshops and intensive farming.

Personally I think intensive farming is one of our world’s most horrific practices, and it has a lot to do with why I became a vegetarian 16 years ago. To borrow a line from one of my favourite campaigns, “A world without factory farming is possible. Make it possible”. I’m not going to go into the details here, I’m just using this example as a case in point.

Is there something you feel strongly about? Perhaps you boycott a company you believe to be unethical. Are you sure you aren’t personally funding THAT company with your bank savings or superannuation? Who does your bank invest in? Where is your superannuation invested?

It’s worth asking a few simple questions to find out, and if it all feels a bit hard, then at least there is a superannuation fund you can select which you can be certain does NOT invest in:

• Child Labour
• Human Rights Abuses
• Environmental Destruction
• Intensive Farming
• Live Exports
• Animal Testing

If you want more information then go to http://www.crueltyfreesuper.com.au/. I’m not commissioned to speak on their behalf, I just happen to believe they’re a good company with a good idea: not investing in torture, abuse or destruction.

Where is your money invested?

First Post Introduction

Inspired by Leo Babauta from ZenHabits I am hereby beginning an attempt to write every day (well, at least every WEEK day). Encouraged to give my rambling thoughts some sense of order I decided to start this blog.

I don’t feel like a ‘natural’ blogger because I am quite a shy person at heart. Also my only previous experience ‘writing’ has been in a diary I kept as a child/teen and some essay writing for various courses I have studied over my life.

See? Already I want to go back and delete the previous paragraph. My inner voice is being critical; “who cares?” and “you don’t write well enough to be interesting”.

Well, it’s a start. I’ve actually considered writing a blog before, but what to write it about? Lack of topics isn’t exactly a problem for me, I have varied interests but compartmentalise my life to such a degree that combining all these topics had just not crossed my mind. That is, until now.

So I will be attempting to blog about these subjects which are close to my heart (these are NOT in any kind of order):

Self-sustainable living

Fashion: with a heavy leaning toward Rockabilly and Vintage

Sewing and other D.I.Y.

Anarchism and Self-Management

Practicing Buddhism

Being Vegetarian (I’m a vegan wannabe)

Dogs and Animal Welfare

Permaculture

Running and other awesome sports like roller derby

Alternative lifestyles

I’m sure there is a lot of ground I will cover otherwise too, as this process unfolds.

Most of all I want to be honest. Honest with you and honest with me. I haven’t always been honest to myself, or those who love me. I want to lose the fear I have of ‘everything coming out’, I don’t know why but I’m afraid if I truly let people get to know me, then they won’t like me anymore.

So I have ‘work’ friends and ‘girl’ friends and ‘couple’ friends but only a handful of people in the world know all the dark parts about me that I usually gloss over. They are the people who have seen me at my worst and have stuck around. True friends. I’m lucky to have even a handful of such amazing people.

Let me finish by introducing some of my favourite blogs/sites of the moment:

The Rockabilly Girl Next Door

ZenHabits

No Meat Athlete

JuliaBobbin

PLEASE feel free to leave any comments, good or bad, all criticism is welcome and will be taken constructively. OK, for total honesty, I will attempt to take all criticism constructively, but if I feel any rage rising I'll go back and read one of my favourite ZenHabits on A Method for Beating Anger, then I'll come back and reply from a better mental place. xxx