For my first blog of 2014, I’ve decided to put together a list of 14 things that I’m hoping to do, or at least contribute to this year, without giving priority to any in particular. Perhaps most important, I would like to hear from any readers of this blog who either have ideas about how one or more of these efforts can be expedited or simply would like to pitch in, as they will require a lot of energy, help and inspiration.
1. Be more outspoken on health and wellness issues, especially ones that have simple solutions like replacing compact fluorescent lighting (CFLs) with light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and using probiotics to relieve a variety of ailments rather than drugs with harmful side effects.
2. Work diligently to democratize organic and healthy foods by making them more accessible and affordable.
3. Continue to learn as much as I can about how to make our food supply healthy in a way that does not require people to change their habits, such as switching to milk and meat from grass-fed cows.
4. Promote healthy gut flora through diet and use of probiotics as well as a healthy mouth microbiome, which may change the way we look at toothpaste and oral care entirely (yes, throw out the mouthwash now).
5. Utilize the things everyone likes as delivery systems for health — for example, chocolate as an anti-aging agent and pleasant-tasting probiotics or turmeric to combat dementia.
6. Build an affiliate website program that offers greater access to genuine health and wellness products and compensates entrepreneurs with a passion for developing them (as an example, you might check out www.lightcues.com, which is the “beta” stage).
7. Reintroduce S&H Green Stamps as a “Sustainable and Healthy” product rewards platform.
8. Help to eliminate food waste by promoting pallet-specific temperature monitoring and technologies like temperature-sensing foam and color changing tags.
9. Do whatever I can to provide clean PET for eventual re-use in the revitalized U.S. production of apparel utilizing recycled materials.
10. Find more effective ways of seeing that glass containers get recycled rather than ending up in landfills.
11. Cultivate and mentor a group of young people who can take on causes and find commercially viable solutions to problems.
12. Make the management of every hotel I stay at aware of how much more restful their rooms would be if CFLs were eliminated and replaced with biologically corrected LEDs.
13. Help create a safer and less allergy-prone environment for children by eliminating both toxic synthetic rubber and allergen-laden tropical rubber from all products designed for infants and toddlers, from binkies to nipples, and by working to make foods free of pesticides herbicides and chemicals (see www.yulex.com and www.chemicalfreekids.com) (The number 13 being my birth date, I’ve reserved it for perhaps the most important item on the list.)
And finally,
14. Detach from the results of 1-13 once I have given them my best shot. Spend more time sleeping, meditating, and enjoying what life has to offer, realizing that I can only control my input in any given situation, but not its ultimate outcome. And that’s the same advise I would offer anyone who hopes to ‘change the world’.