Bittersweet Truth

Sarah Saxon is a senior at Roland Park Country School working as a BJEN intern this spring. She authored this guest entry.

My parents recently cancelled the newspaper. Their decision to do so was mainly because the paper was becoming more expensive yet contained less material by the day. They also cancelled the newspaper because these days you can find everything about the news online.

From the environmentalist’s point of view this great! Today’s progressive society is constantly coming up with new and improved ways to reduce the use of natural resources; such as the trees that go into making a news paper. However, this triumph is bittersweet.

What about the traditions that we lose? What about being to wake up every morning, opening the newspaper (with coffee cup in hand), and reading the comics?

Sometimes I feel like because we are in the “age of technology”, we lose sight of the simple things in life that make it quirky and unique. Environmentalism doesn’t necessarily have to be such a serious business. These days it is so easy to get caught up in changing your everyday life for the greater good.

So my advice is: don’t lose sight of the simple things. It’s good to keep the environment in mind when buying something or wasting something, etc., but it is not good to lose sight of what makes you happy. If you like reading the newspaper, then read the newspaper. Just make sure you recycle it. Don’t change to an online paper because you think you need to, change because you want to.