I should just tell you: I'm kind of a horrible person.
Not like "evil racist" horrible, or "serial felon" horrible, or even the more corporately respectable "dumping oil into the ocean" horrible, but I suffer from a very specific kind of personal awfulness: Intellectually, I know I should do things that are good for the world and/or humanity, but realistically, in most of my actions and behaviors, I mostly just further complicate the world's problems by consuming more than I contribute. This is probably on account of my laziness, lack of self-awareness, a selfish avoidance of anything I perceive to be inconvenient, or some combination of all these factors.
Some background on me: I'm a comedy writer and Internet person living in Los Angeles. I pretend to read The New Yorker. I text messaged money to Haiti after the earthquake. I go see documentaries about how totally messed up the world is, then feel bad for a while afterwards. I guess I would describe myself as your classic "lazy liberal" type—a person quick to espouse his progressive ideals, but whose idea of "social action" mostly consists of watching The Daily Show, shopping at Whole Foods, and participating in the occasional Facebook petition.
I'm basically a hypocrite and, like I said, kind of a horrible person.
This column is intended to document my attempt not to become a "Good Person," per se (I'm pretty sure that's not within my realm of possibility), but to make an effort to be a little better by taking a series of manageable and measurable steps (Baby Steps, if you will) toward sustainability.
I know there have been other energetic and idealistic activists who documented their attempts to become more mindful individuals, but this is a column intended for the lazier, softer, hopelessly selfish type of socially conscious person. Those of us who want the world to be better, but don't really feel like doing much about it ourselves.
If I can do even a little bit better, trust me—so can you.
Alex Blagg is a writer and comedian in Los Angeles. Most recently he created the satirical website BajillionHits.Biz, for which The Daily Beast called him the "Stephen Colbert of New Media". Prior to that, he was the founding Editor-in-Chief of MSN's Wonderwall.com, won two Webby Awards for his work running Vh1's "Best Week Ever" blog, and was included in The Huffington Post's list of "50 Funny People You Should Be Following On Twitter". He is truly a horrible person.
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