Being gone for a couple weeks shed some light on some differences between me and My Guy.
When I came home, the pre-compost-tub held exactly what I had last tossed in it, and no more. The tin can recycling bag held one lone bottle.
Well, huh. Clearly my habits had not rubbed off on him…..in eight years.
And then I was told by this guy, My Guy, that he had thought my Challenge did have an impact on him, because perhaps he didn’t go out enough.
Huh.
Sometimes we might think that we are on the same wavelength, and surprise, surprise, we aren’t. But here’s how I’m looking at it. There is nothing he does that prevents me from composting or recycling. Normally when I’m around he’ll put recycling by the sink, and I rinse or swish or sort. Not a biggie. He sometimes composts when I’m around; sometimes I pull the coffee filter or some egg shells off the garbage, which is literally right next to the pre-compost tub. Again, no biggie.
On to going out. This means going out to eat; we don’t go dancing or to clubs or movies or whatever; maybe a street fair now and then. Now, we are independent folk. I say: Go Out, young man. I do not have any problem with My Guy spending his money on whatever. It’s a benefit of having separate money. Sometimes this benefits him; when he took off work a few months, I was absolutely fine with it; it didn’t affect my savings, and him living off his savings as an extended vacation by choice was absolutely what he wanted to do.
So I’ll encourage him to Go Out more, with friends, his sister, whatever. I still hold that many of the dinners we ate out were more out of laziness than a desire to eat Out. And I’ll look out for ways to make at home dinner feel more Out. (His hints about our “peasant food” should have been more of an inspiration to cook it up.)
I don’t really prevent him from Going Out, even though I affect it some. He doesn’t help compost and recycle, but he doesn’t make it difficult for me to do so. We could spend a lot of time trying to convert each other, but heck, I’m not interested. If I can go out to eat twice a month while on My Challenge, I’ll go ahead and pull egg shells out of the garbage.
(He didn’t hang laundry on the line once. I haven’t gotten the electric bill, so I’m still calm about that.)
You don’t have to convert someone to do what you need to do. Nice.
Do What You Need to Do
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