When the lights go out…

Posted by Lisa Gilbride

Have you ever lost electricity and walked into a room only to turn on the switch when you KNOW the power is out? Welcome to my world. I live in Mexico where power outages are quite frequent.

So, with no T.V., no computer, no radio, I have nothing left to do but just think. I keep asking myself one question: What did people do before there was electricity? Then I look to where we are now. Could our answer to today’s environmental issues be found in the past?

People in the past were self-sustaining. They figured out how to get light and water and food. We can figure it out too! We harness the sun with solar energy. We can harness the wind and the rain as well. I am certain before the convenience of electricity and water came along, they were putting nature to work for them. The earth needs a rest from all the mining of coal and oil.

I think instead of being self-absorbed and lost in the land of computers, cell phones, bad T.V., video games, texting etc, we need to look at being self-sustaining and bring communities closer again. I am positive the people that actually lived without electricity relied on other people around them. I believe they were happy with life. After all, they were most likely our kin.

Everything we have now we take for granted. We are so conditioned to flipping a switch and expecting that light to come on. When it doesn’t, we become lost as to what we can do without it.

No idea should go unnoticed. Ask yourself the question when you have a power outage. Let me know what comes to mind. The answers are out there and I think they are in the past.

– Lisa Gilbride