Another Day in the Country
Choosing the greater good
© Another Day in the Country
Choices can be so challenging. If we were honest, we would admit that we would like them to be clearly black and white — all good, or all bad — so they are easier to make.
But since we humans were given a brain for contemplation, thinking, weighing out the results of each decision, and where it lands on the spectrum — between good and bad, advantage and disadvantage — we get to make a choice.
Through those decisions and life experiences, we develop a philosophy — considering truth, right and wrong, our spiritual beliefs, and the nature and meaning of life.
We weigh decisions, asking ourselves and our community, how does this affect us all and what choice is the best for the greater good.
Ideally, the greater good goes beyond who makes money off of a given decision or who uses it most. More important, the greater good includes the future — even those grandkids you haven’t had yet!
It used to be, in our naiveté, we thought we could choose just for now — for ourselves, our family, our neighbors, our town, our county, our state, our country. You get the picture.
But now, more and more, we’re realizing that what we do today in our backyard eventually impacts everyone, everywhere.
You likely know, when contemplating the greater good, that this greater good always comes with a personal cost.
Scripture called it unselfishness. My Mom called it being magnanimous. I call it being cooperative.
The bigger the action, the bigger the consequence, and the bigger the area it touches.
Some negative actions that individuals or corporations have taken are ones we just grew up accepting. We didn’t know any better.
For ages, the ocean and the earth has been a dumping ground, and now people are talking about it so we can become educated.
Maybe we shouldn’t be using so much plastic, since it never goes away. Maybe I should change my habits.
As adult humans, we are called upon to learn, adjust, choose carefully and change our ways if we discover something is harmful.
I know it’s hard to wean yourself from using plastic. It’s those zip-lock bags that I’m addicted to. They’re so handy. But for the greater good, I limit how much I use them.
Often, we don’t like to learn a new way of behaving — seatbelts, for instance.
I didn’t grow up with them. I don’t like them. I hate wearing them. But statistics tell us people are generally safer in a car when wearing them. In fact, folks were so convinced that they made a law that says, for the greater good, wear seatbelts. So we give up some personal freedom and do it.
Sometimes, living in the country, owning our own land, without close neighbors, we think that we are independent — which, for many, means doing as we please.
What it really means is that we’re responsible to the earth, not just people. It’s our job to make sure our choices are for the greater good — for our kids underfoot, our neighbors down the road, and even the people distant from us whom we’ll likely never meet.
Sadly, members of my generation have been big polluters — not necessarily on purpose, but out of ignorance.
We were having so much fun getting ahead that we forgot that burying something doesn’t mean it’s gone and making something new doesn’t mean it’s better.
Now, we are called upon big time to change our ways.
Like some of you, I didn’t like the idea of big windmills sitting on the horizon outside of town, but then again, I’m addicted to electricity.
Fossil fuel — coal, crude oil, natural gas — created most of our electricity at one time. Now, for the greater good, we need to switch to renewables like solar, and wind, which in 2023 provided about 25% of our energy and, according to Google, we did even better in 2024, some say as high as 40%.
Weighing all the choices, searching for the greater good, I’ve come to believe that solar and wind power are the best solution — not perfect, just better than most.
As a result, I’ve worked to adjust, accept the new view on the horizon, and even see windmills’ beauty.
My daughter made the plunge to use solar power at our family home in California when the state was giving incentives. It still was expensive but well worth it.
Quite frankly, I’m proud of Marion County people being proactive, attempting to leave a cleaner legacy for the next generation, which wants to enjoy using ever more electric power.
Because we’re afraid of change, we grasp at straws and make feeble, even inaccurate arguments — citing, for instance, how many birds a windmill could kill, which in reality is minuscule compared to how many birds are killed by our cats every year, not counting how many birds we kill just for sport during hunting season. I’m perplexed by that concern.
Speaking of pollution, did you know that, in Kansas, wind energy causes the least? And yet I’ve heard the argument put forth that windmills pollute the earth.
Is it the concrete — as if we haven’t been putting concrete slabs and silos of all kinds on the land for ages? As if we haven’t tolerated our meat and grain production to pollute the air, the ground, rivers and streams for decades.
Sadly, production is prone to pollute, but when it has to happen, because electricity is vital to our way of life, let’s at least make its production as low-impact as possible — for the greater good.
It’s another day in the country, and according to my weather app the wind speed is 14 mph with gusts up to 22 mph. Let’s let that wind do something useful besides drying my sheets on the clothesline.
Our mechanized footprint is everywhere, and we are called upon to pick and choose carefully the way we will amend the environment, asking ourselves every day, “What is for the greater good?”