Does every cloud have a silver lining? No, not the ones made up of smoke. These clouds shed acid tears while the world below sinks in the toxicity. “No one is born bad”, they say, and so I believe the same for the clouds. Who turned the cotton-clouds black then? It was me. Here, I speak for humanity as a whole. It was I who coloured the waters brown, the valleys red and the skies black. It is I who makes the lands dry, the mountains bare and the forests glow. It is I who is destroying my own home.
Humans are the most advanced species to have ever set foot on Earth. However, this unmatched power has only led to expansion and invasion of territory. Only beginning to realise that every action reaps a consequence, we are beginning to repent. Anne Frank once said that 'Dead people receive more flowers than the living, because regret is stronger than gratitude'; this quote has been effectively proven, for, gratitude for everything Mother Earth has given us, has never touched us enough to bring change. Only the hands of regret are skilled enough to bring change to life. What is this change we go on and on about? How should I change? That ‘I’ that you just read is the change we need. For everyone to replace the 'we must change' by 'I will change' is the first ingredient to baking a healthy future. Fortunately, humans have been blessed with this key tool on which rests the fate of the universe. The complexity yet simplicity of this one word you shall read is like no other. Knowledge. You have to know about water to put out a fire, know how to read so that you can write and know the damaged part to get it fixed. Similarly, we need to know that nothing lasts without maintenance.
Although I have spoken about two key steps to meet our goal of a healthy future, the main ingredient to prepare a sweet dish is always sugar; our entire goal is dependent upon the effort we put into it. It is not hard to compost, recycle, reduce, reuse or donate but it is hard to be mindful, be consistent and aware. This is the psychological aspect of saving our only planet. In the end, we are left rethinking whether every cloud has a silver lining or not, but what if I told you that YOU are the silver lining…
A reminder that we ourselves are nature
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