It's Blog Action Day!

Today, 15,861 bloggers worldwide are posting their thoughts and concerns about the environment, sustainability, and climate change. I can imagine thousands of people giving their .02-cents about various environmental issues today, which is fabulous.

But today I decided to go down memory lane and reflect upon my experience hosting BagFest. In just four hours, folks in my community donated 72,571 plastic bags for recycling, which filled up half of a Wal-Mart semi-truck.

That's me captured in a spontaneous moment of acting silly inside the truck. I remember being somewhat awestruck when I saw those bags getting ready to be hauled for recycling - We actually did this - Unbelievable! It's beautiful to remember how everyone worked together to help make BagFest a successful event.

But I certainly didn't plan this event just for me to act silly in front a pile of plastic bags! And six-months later, I'm chairing the recycling committee and working on research projects that investigate the relationship between cognition and environmentalism. Why do this? Am I some kind of sado-masochist? No, I think not.

There's perhaps several reasons why I'm passionate about protecting the environment, but the bottom line is this: There is more to life than just thinking about me (my career, my relationships, my future). I remember years ago feeling quite depressed about getting a job right out of graduate school. In trying to console me, a good friend of mine said that life is much bigger than this (i.e., the state of affairs I was experiencing at that time) - and she was right. Her words, in some circuitous fashion, have led me on an journey to explore just how large, complex, and magnificient this world really is and how someone as small and insignificant as me could find her place in this world.