EPISODE 52: FROM HAVING NOTHING TO WANTING TO BUY EVERYTHING
Takeaways
Growing up in a Chinese immigrant household, we were raised in scarcity. In not-enoughness. How could we think about the greater world around us when my parents were trying to help our immediate family survive? We were “sustainable” because we didn’t have money to be reckless and wasteful; but then, as people rise in socio-economic classes, it becomes easy to want more, to make up for what we didn’t have, to show others that we have made it. But, as a surfer who has always had my breath taken away each time I see the ocean, I think about the planet and how we’re destroying Her. And then, I think about the world my daughter will inherit.
Now that I’m a generation grown up, I’m realizing that there are so many choices we can make to create a better world for myself and my daughter. That I didn’t know better and the fact that my family saved every plastic container doesn’t have to reflect a “poor” mentality, but one that knows that reusing and being mindful of our imprint on this world – both positively and negatively – can do a world of good.
How can we help save the world?
In this week’s episode of F*ck Saving Face Podcast, we talk about sustainability and how every single one of us can make a difference by choosing more intentionally and more consciously. The more you know, the more you understand the potential impact of everything you do. On Friday, we’ll have a mindfulness practice around eco-grief to help heal the stressors of how to handle climate change and where the world is now.
We also cover:
Love Poems From God by Daniel Ladinsky
Net zero emissions or carbon neutrality
Daylight Robbery by Dominic Frisbee
Episode Highlights
03:08 Looking for guidance
05:03 You’re not alone
06:42 Let’s save the planet
08:19 Small efforts for the greater good
15:08 A lifestyle change
Transcript:
Judy Tsuei 0:06
Welcome to the F*ck Saving Face podcast. I'm your host, Judy Tsuei, and together we'll explore mental and emotional health for Asian Americans, especially breaking through any taboo topics. Life may not always be pretty, but it is indeed beautiful. Let's make your story beautiful today.
Judy Tsuei 0:24
Hello, hello. Welcome back to the podcast. Thank you for all the new listeners. If you are brand new here, please check out my previous episodes, I've been publishing three episodes a week, where we explore one cohesive theme. And on Mondays there's a personal essay on Wednesdays there's an interview with an expert to elaborate on that theme. And on Fridays, there's a mindfulness practice to tie it all together and offer an opportunity for healing and reflection.
Judy Tsuei 0:48
I also wanted to say that we were about to wrap up season one, there are about four more interviews give or take, depending on what pops up, I like to kind of be organic and go with the flow and at the same time have a little bit of structure, which totally reflects my personality. But we will be taking a break for about a month, a month and a half. And during that time, I'll be appearing on other people's podcasts and really gathering up a lot of new direction for season two, I'm excited for what's to come.
Judy Tsuei 1:15
And I hope you will stay tuned. And if you haven't had a chance to explore previous episodes, there's so many fascinating topics, so many incredible guests who have shared beautiful insights, that I hope it's an opportunity for you to go back through and really partake in a lot of this evergreen content. A lot of the lessons are designed so that you know, you'll find them I believe when it's divinely timed. So when you exactly need to hear that message in your own life.
Judy Tsuei 1:44
It's funny, because this weekend, we were at a kid's birthday party, my daughter and I and it was with this family from her Waldorf school. So they're preparing to move. And this was one of the last opportunities that we were going to get to connect. And I actually haven't had a chance to really get to know this family until just now. And what's interesting to me is that I had a life coach once told me that when you're preparing to make a change in your life, a big change, like a move or some other comparable transition, you start to create all of this energy behind you, there's suddenly this electrified momentum, and people start to gravitate towards that. So you might notice in your own life, that people have come out of the woodwork, when you've decided to let's say make a move or you know, shift something big in your life.
Judy Tsuei 2:25
At the end of the party, we were sitting there and I was talking with a father and he's created a very successful entrepreneurial career based on you know, several consumer product goods. And so he's in the middle of writing his memoir, a story about how he started his company and all the lessons that he's learned along the way. So I jokingly said, Oh, so did you figure out the answer to life? And he was like, "No, no way."
Judy Tsuei 2:47
I'm like, Oh, I thought that you were going to be the one who was going to tell me what the secret to everything was how to unlock everything. And so we started laughing about that. And then I said, or I could just be your life coach and tell you that you have the answer within isn't that what every single life coach every single teacher ends up telling us is that we are on our own individual journeys.
Looking for guidance
Judy Tsuei 3:08
And we invest all of this time and energy and money in someone else telling us what to do or guiding us along which I will be the first to raise my hand and say that I've invested over, you know, 10s of 1000s of dollars in different programs, personal education, healing modalities, life coaches, business coaches, business strategists, because I've always been seeking for someone else outside of me to tell me what is right or wrong.
Judy Tsuei 3:32
And a lot of this has been from my own personal upbringing of not having really stable parental figures who could guide me along my path. And also having immigrant parents who didn't know how things work, they didn't know about how to apply to college or, you know, get into a good school other than what they were hearing from other members in the community. So a lot of what I've created in my life has been through personal self development, my own tenacity and resolve my own self directed will to just go figure it out.
Judy Tsuei 4:04
And because of that, I've also kind of placed my confidence in someone else's hands where I've continually used other people as a check and balance to see Am I doing this right? Am I living my life accordingly? Am I doing the things that I'm supposed to be doing to be accepted. And so it's been a big journey for me, especially because I'm also a self proclaimed nerd. If I could just go to school forever, and just learn and learn and learn, I would love to do that.
Judy Tsuei 4:31
So in a way, I'm taking that tendency, and I'm learning how to build an inner state of guidance, as well as you know, I'm still going to be that perpetual nerd, I'm still going to want to learn everything that I possibly can. And in that endeavor in interviewing all of these experts, I hope that it offers some insight to help you navigate your own path and to take what works for you and to leave the rest. I used to say that in teaching yoga all the time Just if it fits great, if it doesn't just let it float on by.
You’re not alone
Judy Tsuei 5:03
Ultimately, I want to say thank you, because you are helping to hold space for me to learn and grow and process and share and to hopefully make meaning of the things that I have done in my life, whether they were triumphs or mistakes. And in that goal, I'm simultaneously hoping that you know that you're not alone. And whatever it is that you're going through, there's this book called Love Poems From God, and I'm not a religious person.
Judy Tsuei 5:31
But there's all these beautiful poems in it that are from all these mystics over time, so over millennia, and what I find fascinating is that the topics that they're writing about the things that they're struggling with the things that they're celebrating, the things that they're sharing, transcend time, they are still as relevant today, as they were when these, you know, profound figures wrote them in whatever time they were living in, which just goes to show that so much of this is about the human experience.
Judy Tsuei 6:01
And it's shared, of worn out weird and wrong, or making all these mistakes for no reason. It's simply part of this self mastery course that we are all on, and that we're all seeking some sort of answer, we're all on a quest that's very similar. And while the expression is going to be absolutely different and unique for each and every one of us there is that shared humanity and that shared journey that we're all on. So I hope that this entire podcast just provides an opportunity for you to explore it with other people.
Let’s save the planet
Judy Tsuei 6:42
For today, and for this week's theme, we are going to be talking about sustainability, which is a topic very near and dear to my heart, I've always felt genuinely like my heart was breaking or bleeding whenever I saw the things that were happening to the planet. And I've heard both this idea that, you know, we could do whatever we can, but it's the big corporations that need to change, because until they do, all of our efforts can seemingly be trivial or small.
Judy Tsuei 7:12
And then on the other end of that spectrum, I've heard that, you know, every single one of us can make such a huge difference by choosing more intentionally and more consciously, with greater education and understanding of the impact of everything that we do.
Judy Tsuei 7:25
So wherever you fall in that spectrum, I hope that this essay today, and the interview that I have on Wednesday with Daisy Chen Hutton, who used to be in fashion at big global brands, and then realized how much waste was happening, that she started moving towards a sustainable effort when it came to still pursuing something she was very passionate about, which is fashion.
Judy Tsuei 7:50
And then on Friday, the mindfulness practice where when I was working at the mindfulness app in LA, one of the categories that I was working on was eco grief. And it's a very real stressor that a lot of people go through. So hopefully that mindfulness practice on Friday will offer some sort of alleviation of stress as well as a deeper recognition of the responsibility that we can all have to be part of this global fabric of the world.
Small efforts for the greater good
Judy Tsuei 8:19
Alrighty. Here's today's essay. Sometimes when I'm with my partner, I feel a little sheepish that I save the Ziploc bags. He makes his daughter's smoothies in the mornings. And sometimes after I've stayed over and they've all left the house. I help tidy up. Me, I can't help it. My parents tried their best to keep the house tidy, but it always felt a mess. So my youngest brother and I are a little compulsive when it comes to clean. Well, my middle siblings aren't quite the same.
Judy Tsuei 8:45
My partner also likes to be clean. And I recognize just how much when I walked into his bedroom for the first time and glanced into his closet and saw how every single button down shirt was hung in an organized fashion on the rack. All the shoes were lined up. Everything was almost sorted by color. Oh, wow. I thought he's genuinely neat. So, one morning while I was doing the dishes, I washed the plastic straws in addition to the rest of the pots and pans.
Judy Tsuei 9:12
One of my first gifts to him was actually a metal straw. Then when I was getting ready to leave his house, I left a note. Hi love, hope you had a great day. I love you. I tidied it up. Also, I washed the plastic straws because dot dot dot Earth. I wrote Earth and capital letters. We leave each other notes. We live in separate houses and both have children and lives so we do our best to stay connected. When he got home. He texted me Thank you. Then he said I swear I washed the plastic straws and reuse them.
Judy Tsuei 9:41
While working at the mindfulness app in Los Angeles. Last year, I was tasked to write about eco grief. I knew the pain. Well. I began to read in National Geographic about whether the planet could actually be saved. Or if the predictions are true that we're already too far down the road of destruction to be able to quote unquote solve climate change that the Two dates matter 2030 and 2050. Because by 2050 at the latest and ideally by 2040, we must have stopped emitting more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than Earth can naturally absorb through its ecosystems of balance known as net zero emissions or carbon neutrality.
Judy Tsuei 10:17
In the book, the future we choose surviving the climate crisis. The goal of having global emissions by 2030 represents the absolute minimum we must achieve if we are to have at least a 50% chance of safeguarding humanity from the worst impacts. We are in the critical decade. All of this stresses me out to no end. Then I hear from Safa Dean mousses, the Bitcoin standard podcast where he's talking about everything from Elon Musk saying these things about the dangers of coal mining, when it comes to crypto and how there's a man named Bjorn Lomborg, who calls himself the skeptical environmentalist because he went from 1,000% were killing the planet to a now more moderated view that all this hype and fear isn't actually where we're headed.
Judy Tsuei 11:01
How do you know? How do I know that I'm not killing this beautiful planet we live on for my daughter? And what will my six year old have to deal with in the future? What planet is she inheriting? If I'm not using every single piece of something, then I feel wasteful. When I was growing up, bone marrow was an essential thing to eat because we were going to chew the bones in our brothy soup, and our pie gufa until they were masqueraded beyond belief to get every piece of fat and flesh off of our dinner. But now, bone marrow, it's a delicacy, a luxury $50 for a plate.
Judy Tsuei 11:36
When my friend moved from Taiwan back to California, before I did, she asked if she could give me everything in her fridge. She told me how much this alleviated her stress of being wasteful. When I moved back to California A month later, I do the same thing. I give everything cups cleaning supplies, frozen dumplings to my neighbor, Ivan, are you sure you want to give this to me? he asked. Yes, yes, yes. Because to think that it would go to waste would hurt my heart.
Judy Tsuei 12:00
I think these were some of the subtle lessons I learned growing up Chinese. These days I drive a Prius, which I was later told by my friend is apparently not as eco friendly as I think because it uses both the electric power and an actual engine. The guilt that settles in when I think about that. I also don't really know how to compost, but I want to but worms, and yet I reuse every bag I can. I wrapped gifts in Amazon brown paper stuffing, and then I put pretty washi tape over it or have my daughter draw on it.
Judy Tsuei 12:35
I reuse glass jars. And I try to buy only glass when shopping at the grocery store. I buy sustainable clothing even from the big name brands knowing that fast fashion hurts the planet and the people on it. Especially after learning from my friend Joanna who started a sustainable Poncho and textile company called Mater Ilana, where she's supporting local artisans in her native Columbia. And she told me how vital it is to think about the goods we purchase, where they're coming from how it's not only the impact on the planet, but the people who make them.
Judy Tsuei 13:04
She's helping to sustain a tradition with these men in these communities who are artisans, and who still use a loom to create the beautiful Poncho she sells. All of these things are what I think people mean when they say we are all connected, that we are all one my friends only runs in organic farm on Koi. And I've learned so much about how to think about the planet and the people on it through her. She told me she loves a great secondhand thrift store near me when she came out to visit that one of my other most stylish friends, Brett loves.
Judy Tsuei 13:36
And so in a way, it's just this little way to keep ourselves and our kids stylin without creating more without going to target and buying the most adorable goods knowing that it won't last forever. And the way that it's produced isn't taking into consideration the legacy effect of what we're investing in. But this is all required reframing because growing up my Chinese mother never let me borrow clothes or buy secondhand. That was seen as poor. And even though we were so in debt as a family that sometimes our phone line would get disconnected. We weren't supposed to look like it. But eventually buying secondhand became a hip. And eventually my mother learned not to say so much.
Judy Tsuei 14:19
I'm not perfect. I'm doing my best. It does make me feel good to know that I don't throw out much trash these days, except for whatever can go into the green waste. Our waste mostly comes from home cooked meals. And because my tastebuds also changed after my daughter was born eating out wasn't that exciting anymore. And I don't love sweets the same. Instead, I cook with her. I bake. I make things that look fancy but are actually incredibly simple.
Judy Tsuei 14:45
When my daughter and I watched a documentary about the ocean, she immediately started crying as she saw that the coral was being bleached, that our impact on this beautiful blue planet means that other systems are dying. She didn't need to know the science behind the fact that The coral dine was bad. She intuitively knew that this destruction was terrible for all and she had a visceral response to it.
A lifestyle change
Judy Tsuei 15:08
There are parts of me that still want to buy all the things that my consciousness has expanded, so I can't do it the same without the guilt free spending of yesteryears. I used to have such an extensive closet. Now, when I moved from Santa Monica to San Diego, I started giving all of my things away to the women who I work with and Neutrogena, to the point that when I would bring in bags of clothes, they were asking how big is your closet actually, there's that saying no better do better, which I think is also hard, because sometimes I think we know better. But for whatever reason, we can't do better. Except I think that we all do try.
Judy Tsuei 15:46
My neighbor, Carrie, who's become like family has told me that people have commented to her before, they've never seen someone reuse so many bags or reuse so many plastic containers. She used to teach kids about nutrition, and she'd shared to parents who are in underprivileged neighborhoods, she would always encourage the parents and the kids to do the best that you can, and that you're not going to tell a single mom to buy only organic if what she can do after our long as 12 hour shift making minimum wage is to make mac and cheese out of a box for herself and her kids.
Judy Tsuei 16:20
I think that given all of the expectations and obligations that we have in our lives, that we are all doing the best that we can. And for those of us who can do better, I hope that we do in a way that gives back to the greater good. I've been learning a lot about cryptocurrency lately why we're endeavoring to move away from a centralized system of money. And so much of this flows into needing a deregulation of a number of industries that would actually behoove us as a huge global culture.
Judy Tsuei 16:48
On one of those podcast episodes that I mentioned earlier, in the Bitcoin standard, I learned that it used to be that the wealthy in Greece supported those less able that they funded the programs the poor needed in a process called voluntary taxation. Their names were put on plaques to demonstrate their responsibility they're giving, there was a system of give and take of those with more helping those with less and have public recognition of that responsibility. But then we started taxing those who couldn't afford it, whose only asset was their labor and their time, recreated more inequity.
Judy Tsuei 17:22
There's a whole book around this by Dominic Frisby called Daylight Robbery, how tax shaped our past and will change our future. All of these circumstances, all of these things that as we learn more and more about, we understand how we got to where we are now, the impact that we're making, and the choices that we have to change what's coming in the future.
Judy Tsuei 17:42
Honestly, I'm only just learning about sustainability in all ways, from what we can do for our planet, to our choices to our investments. And reframing this belief that I grew up with that I don't actually need to buy more to make it look like I'm doing better. But instead, if my core values center on connection, on being authentic, and on empowering others to create more access to what's essential for all like mental and emotional health, then maybe one of my greatest impacts can also come from making as little of an environmental impact as possible, except when it comes to improving our relationships with ourselves and with others.
Judy Tsuei 18:27
This week's episode on Wednesday features an interview with Daisy Chen Hutton, who used to work at big name global fashion brands like guests, and then she realized that fashion was contributing to waste on such a huge monumental scale that she wanted to create a different model of how to love clothes and love fashion without hurting the environment. tune in on Wednesday when we talk about the cultural lens of doing good for the planet, if you come from immigrant parents who may have created a mindset around scarcity, or what success looks like, and then tune in on Friday when I offer an eco grief meditation to help manage some of the stress that we might be feeling, whether it's subtle or strong in our psyche.
Judy Tsuei 19:10
As a reminder, season one will soon be ending so if you've liked what you've listened to thus far, I highly encourage you to leave a review. It helps me to have momentum to keep moving forward and creating more episodes knowing that I'm producing content out there which is serving you and the greater good. And you can always email me at hello at Fcksavingface[dot]com to share what you would like to learn more about for season two. I look forward to connecting with you in a future episode.
Judy Tsuei 19:39
Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If you liked what you heard and know someone in your life who might also benefit from hearing this episode, please feel free to share it with them. Also, if you'd like to support our show, you can make a one-time donation fcksavingface.com. Or, you can make a recurring donation at patreon.com/fcksavingface. That's “fck” without the “u.” Subscribe today to stay tuned for all future episodes
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