I want to make something clear before I write this article. I am not one to preach about how anyone should live their life. I simply want to share these documentaries with everyone because they made me stop and think about the world. I hope that if any of you take the time to watch one of these they will give you a new perspective also. I think the people in many of these documentaries are very inspiring and show that material things aren’t as important as we may think and that we can change our lifestyles for the better. I aspire to be as strong and inspiring as the stars of these films.

1. Living on One Dollar

This documentary centers around friends who travel to Guatemala and attempt to live only spending one dollar or less a day. They attempt to recreate the struggle of poverty that many Guatemalan people face everyday. The video shows how difficult it is for them to live in this way even for just a couple months. It made me really appreciate what I have and realize how lucky I am. The most inspiring part of this one was that even though many of the people they came across had so little, they were still very happy and lived their lives to the fullest.

2. Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead

This documentary follows Joe Cross, a man who was more than 100 pounds overweight when the story starts. He spends 60 days doing a green juice cleanse (that was approved by his doctor) to lose weight. His goal is to get off his many medications prescribed for various health problems caused by his weight. He also travels across the country and tries to educate other Americans about healthy eating. He even meets another overweight man at a truck stop along the way who later calls him for help losing weight. From someone who barely made it through a three-day juice cleanse, I respect their commitment to their health. I think there is a lot we can learn from Cross. Since the documentary, he has even written multiple books and created a juice cleanse program called “Reboot with Joe” so we can continue to learn from him. "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead 2" is also worth a watch.

3. Minimalism

I just recently discovered this documentary after being bored one night over winter break. I was looking for an interesting movie to watch and after looking for what seemed like hours (as we all do once in a while), I finally settled for this. I am so glad I did because it gave me a very new perspective. The movie follows two friends who were sick of their lives climbing the corporate ladder and decided to quit their jobs to lead a minimalist lifestyle. Self-proclaimed “The Minimalists,” they travel across the country (with only one or two bags to their name) talking to crowds small and large about their seemingly-odd life choice. What I got out of watching this is that they want people to realize that it isn’t material things that are important, life is experiences and living it to the fullest. Basically if you have anything you don’t use, don’t need, or don’t enjoy, just get rid of it. Life is to short. I promptly cleaned out my closet after watching this.

4. The True Cost

This film centers around the fashion industry and the fairly-recent concept of disposable clothing and fast fashion. The documentary shows how the fact that we tire so quickly of our clothing and are never satisfied with what we have pushes the industry to produce clothing faster and cheaper everyday. This resulted in overseas production with poor standards for health and safety. As someone who love store like H&M and Forever21 for their stylish clothes as affordable prices, the way that their workers and the workers of other similar brands are treated, breaks my heart. The film also discuses how higher demand for products such as cotton creates the need to genetically modified crops and more pesticides which are damaging the environment. New clothes are coming into stores every week. We should seriously consider scaling back our new styles to four seasons rather than the 52 seasons a year we are currently working with.

5. Vegucated

Vegetated is about a who recruits three meat-and-cheese-loving fellow New Yorkers and challenges them to go vegan. For six weeks they had to swear off all animal products. Also within those weeks she educated them about the animal product industry by taking them to factory farms, to see speakers and watch documentaries about the animal product industry. They were able to see that vegan food is both healthy and delicious and were repelled by the way the industry inhumanely treated animals. However they also struggled with craving animal products and feeling isolated within their families and friend groups because of their different eating habits. However, when their six weeks were up, they had all lost weight and dropped their blood pressure to a more healthy level. Even after they were done with their challenge, they all remained at least vegetarian and one decided to stay completely vegan. I think this is a true testament to the fact that anyone can be a vegan if you set your mind to it. This documentary also demonstrated to cruelties of factories farms and made me cringe and want to look away while watching it. I think this is one film more people need to see, even if it was simply just for the footage of the animals and the information given about this.

Watching all of these documentaries really opened my eyes. Again, I am not trying to tell anyone how to live their life. This is simply to say that the people who created these films have some very important things to say and I think it is worth taking the time to listen. After doing so it is very difficult to not want to make a change.