Waste Not

I have had the privilege and pleasure of working for Pixster for over a year, coming up on a year and a half in late August. It's actually the longest I've ever stuck with a job, and that obviously comes with a heap of reasons. I work with some pretty amazing people; each attendant is cheerful and also loves what they do and the management team is made up of a pretty incredible group of people.

When I switched from a music major to a writing major my sophomore year of college, I had this looming fear that I would never actually be able to use my writing degree. I could get a job, but not in the field that I, and my parents, spent so much time and money on. Yet, here I sit at my desk typing away while I'm on the clock. I still can't believe that just three weeks after I received my undergraduate degree and I have a job that I look forward to sticking with for a long time.

Call it whatever you'd like: a blessing, luck, coincidence, or just a happenstance, but I feel deep sense of appreciation and gratitude for my job. In addition to the talented and dedicated people I work with, I don't think I could work for a company that didn't carry a sense of corporate social responsibility like Pixster does. We make sure all of our booths are manufactured by local artisans and purchase locally whenever we can, which is pretty often. But what you take, you must also give, which is why we also give back to nearly a dozen charities and organizations such as Big Brothers Big Sisters, American Cancer Society, No Kid Hungry, Brides for a Cause, and much much more. In addition, we've partnered with Compassion International to sponsor twelve underprivileged children across the world. To honor these children, we've named each our booths after every individual child.

This mindful awareness of our social responsibility has created a deep sense of value within myself. Just as Pixster believes in value and appreciating the small and big things given to us, I believe that it's just as important to be loyal and faithful to these small things, which build up overtime and create larger opportunities for our future. It's important to nourish and take care of the things that I, that we at Pixster, already have, and to be wise in the ways we obtain what we need and desire as we expand and grow. The same goes for any individual. When you make the mindful choice to do the little actions every day, it conserves and saves our surroundings daily.

Living in California, it terrifies me to see my once beautiful, Golden State, now shriveling up and choking, as water, our most precious resource, slowly trickles from our beach-desert paradise. Just last night, the gravity of the situation sunk in, as I read that on NASA scientist predicts that California only has about one year of water left. Being in a steady decline of water since 2002, Jay Famiglietti has called for measures to combat the crisis, although we've been on high alert and had to utilize emergency conservation tactics for the last 4 years.

Our planet looks like a miniscule, blue marble from space. Nearly 60% of our own human bodies are composed of water. In other organisms, up to 90% of their body weight comes from water. Water is everywhere--it falls from the skies and springs up from the deepest parts of the earth. It flows in rivers and streams, and even has the power to eradicate entire cities. And yet, I foresee a massive exodus from California in the not-too-distant future. Families, couples, and individuals may be forced to move out of state as California continues to dry up.

There are plenty of ways to help with the California water crisis; shortening your shower to just a few minutes (just cutting down on one minute of shower time saves 2.5 gallons of water), shaving using products such as EOS shaving lotion, which can be used to shave without water, even lessening or cutting some food items out of your diet, such as almonds, avocados, and yes, many, if not all, meat products.

I have my job at Pixster for helping instill a sense of social responsibility in me, both locally and globally. Just as we continue to think socially and responsibly, I now have to ask myself what little actions I can do to help save our state and replenish my Golden State's cracked skin. It's time we start taking this drought seriously. See the links below for more information:

Earth Easy

Water: Use it Wisely

Water-Hungry Foods

Dieting for the Drought