Navigating a busy life full of distractions and disappointments, it's easy to forget about the world around you. Unwholesome diets and lack of empathy for the environment plague society today because of grueling work hours and the desire for a fast-paced city lifestyle. As a result, consumption itself is now controversial. I'm aware of my wastefulness and often feel a strong desire to change. So why haven't I? Restructuring daily routine can feel like a break-up. Ushering out comfort and familiarity is harsh, but sometimes it's necessary - a hurdle I've often struggled to leap. Throughout my daily routine, I consume a lot of stuff. My day begins with breakfast: Nutella on toast, a smoothie, and a banana. The Nutella spread comes in a glass container and the smoothie in a plastic bottle. I then brush my teeth using toothpaste encased in a plastic tube, spray myself with antiperspirant from an aerosol can, comb mousse through my morning mop from a plastic container...

DIFFICULT TO DEFINE One thing I will always remember about being a kid, was my insatiable appetite for familiar comfort. I despised being pushed out of my comfort zone, and wanted everything to remain the same. I didn't enjoy branching out and meeting new people, and "sick-days" at home from school were cherished. As a teenager, I even mastered the ability of deceiving the receptionist at school and calling in sick, just so that I could sit at home and bask in the comfort of familiarity. Being sent off to school camp used to terrify me, as did spending the night in a strange bed at a friends house, or having to showcase my amateur athleticism. Something always pulled me back to simplicity and comfort; a place people often refer to as 'home'. At twenty-four, I haven't really changed, except for the fact that my comfort zone has vastly expanded over the years, and for the most part, I've come to understand that distance from comfort is the essential i...

Auckland vs. Dubai "Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose." Like many privileged kids, I have lived most of my life in a comfortable suburban bubble. Until I was about 19, I never gave much consideration to the rest of the world, and only now do I truly appreciate the things that I once so carelessly took for granted. Somehow my mindset changed during recent years, (I think studying had a lot to do with it) and I decided it was time to implement some change. I recently relocated halfway across the world for a job. I didn't know a single person where I was going, and I had a month to plan an abrupt relocation. Even though it sounds somewhat bizarre, as if finding the right job is really worth moving away from your home for, personally it has been one of the best decisions I have ever made. Some of us have it, and some of us don't - that longing to experience more than what is familiar and comfortable. For...