Every little choice has a value — a positive or negative value.  Maybe it’s a little ‘obsessive-compulsive’, but I do have a tendency to see all human behaviour through a filter of ‘values’.  In other words, the world will be better off or worse off, depending on your choice or behaviour. 

Whether we’re talking about having fun on Facebook, or plotting to take on a malevolent dictator; having a dinner party or buying a Gucci bag; drinking ‘fair trade’ coffee or regular; staying home to paint a wall, or driving to the supermarket — almost anything we do, it seems to me, has a sort of ‘value measurement’ – for example, what might be the impact of not bothering to buy fair trade coffee?

And more and more people are beginning to realize this — that nothing is truly unrelated to the broader context we live in, nothing is without impact.  What we buy around the corner may result in someone’s pain or death on the other side of the globe.  How we get from A to B may mean the destruction of people or other species.

Our choices in life – from an immediate, self-gratifying activity, to our vote — can have impacts we aren’t even aware of.  And one of our choices can be to remain unaware.   It’s so easy.  When a little awareness seeps in, we become uncomfortable — so we watch another episode of Seinfeld or Canadian Idol, and feel okay again….