Says Josh Brown,

“I can’t sleep these days. I lay in bed for at least an hour every night. Sometimes 2 or more hours. This is after I’ve turned off the lights, shut down the computer, and closed my book. I lay there. Heavy. Overwhelmed. And thinking. I can’t quit thinking about my over-consumption. I talk about how much I can’t stand materialism and commercialism . . . but I buy right in. And I’ve come to the sad realization that all my talk about sustainability and what little acts that I do are nothing more than token attempts at appeasing my guilt and to make me feel better because I’m “not as bad as that person”.”

This resonated very, very deeply with me. I think that Josh has hit on an imbalance that many of us struggle to overcome… That is, where exactly do high standards end and grace begin? I think it’s even harder for those of us who have only recently (say, within the last five years or so) begun to wake up to the global reality that we’d worked so hard to shelter ourselves from.

Read more: Over Indulgence: My Confession