YOUR RIGHT – YOUR CHOICE – YOUR ACTION

BE MINDFUL – CHOOSE TODAY TO …

BREATHE FRESH AIR Go for a walk and be aware of the life-giving oxygen racing through your blood stream. Look for beauty around you and fill your heart with gratitude.	DROP SUGAR You know that sugar is bad for you, exercise your right to give it up. Sugar may boost your energy in the short term but, it ultimately leads to depressive moods.	DRINK FRESH WATER Drink plenty of clean, fresh water each day. Water hydrates cells, especially your brain cells, so it can reduce lethargy, and may even help improve your thinking capacity.
BE JOYFUL Show appreciation for your colleagues. Go around the office without being seen and place ‘post it’ notes on your team’s desks.	MAKE FRIENDS When last did you tell those you care about that they are special to you? Don’t delay pick up the phone and call them.	HAVE LIGHT Ummm… Stock up on candles

Is this conversation we have coupled ‘human wellbeing’ with ‘human rights’. This could be a very helpful point of view when seen through the lens of ‘human responsibilities’.

Everything we need to be healthy is given freely by nature. The magic process of photosynthesis in the green leaves of plants converts the freely given energy of the sun into the carbohydrates we eat.

Those energy-giving carbohydrates are in turn synthesised into proteins by further living systems to provide the proteins that build our bodies – even giving us the brains to understand this point of view.

Amazingly photosynthesis does not only provide carbohydrates, it gives us the very oxygen we breathe to combust carbohydrates into the energy we need for our daily lives. And when nature originally combined that oxygen with hydrogen, in an exact formula, we got freely given water, without which life as we know it could not exist.

Everything we need to live a healthy life is originally freely provided by nature. Yes, farming intervened in those natural processes of food production, and the distribution of water, food and energy comes with a cost, but the production process is freely provided by nature.

Which makes you think that access to those life-giving resources must surely be a right of all living creatures – not just humans. And that helps us remember that ultimately the health of the whole planetary system ultimately impacts the health of every human being.

So with the celebration of human rights and understanding the importance of natural systems in human wellbeing, we realise there can be no separation of rights and responsibilities. This applies all the way from international governance, to the individual choices we each make on a daily basis.

Caring for our environment, just as we care for ourselves, will ensure that wellbeing also remains a right for our children and our grandchildren.

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