I like to imagine Earth Day is like an anniversary where I just so happened to marry a planet.

Which makes it a good time to think about how I might be a better partner. Because I feel like the Earth has been trying to tell me something, tell us something, and none of us have been listening very well.

(I realize this might be awkward if you’re just learning now that the Earth has been in a polyamorous relationship with every living creature since the beginning of life itself, but you were going to find out someday, so let’s just find a way to make this work, okay?)

I’d hope my human relationships offer some clues. Even after 24 years of marriage, my husband is still the person I like to spend time with the most. What’s our secret sauce? Our marriage is built on an unspoken promise: if something is really important to the other person, we do everything in our power to make it happen—even if that involves a sacrifice.

It plays out in lots of small ways. Sometimes he needs to walk and talk to unwind from his day, and I agree to accompany him, even when I don’t feel like it. He knows I hate to drive, and will offer to take our daughter to field hockey practice, even if it’s my turn.

But sometimes, larger sacrifices are needed. I let him go on a month-long sailing trip across the Atlantic Ocean right before we moved overseas while also caring for a three-year-old and trying to launch my first business. But it also meant that years later he took over the cooking and much of the childcare when I wanted to level up that same business in a big way.

While none of those sacrifices were necessarily easy, we never felt like martyrs either. And that’s what makes it work: mutually assured devotion.

I’ve come to see that I could bring a lot more devotion to my relationship with the Earth. I love the Earth, without question. My top career choice would’ve been a druid, if those jobs were still available (they are not).

And maybe that’s what made it so easy to take the Earth and its gifts for granted. How wrong could I be when my actions felt grounded in love?

As I hear Dr. Wes Ely say recently, "Maleficence can be created with beneficent intent."

I believe I’m changing for the better, but I’m also looking to increase the pace and scope of my sacrifices. For example, I’m transitioning to a largely vegan diet, driven by statistics like this: “75% of all agricultural land is used for grazing animals or growing animal feed,” an area of land larger than Europe and Asia combined.

But on Earth Day, I find myself wondering: what’s taking me so long? Why am I “transitioning” to a vegan diet over time instead of just changing already?

And changing my diet is hardly the most difficult sacrifice I’m likely to make. As this article in the LA Times points out, there are some hard choices ahead:

“[…] in Nevada, conservationists are working to block solar projects that would destroy desert wildlife habitat they’ve dedicated their lives to safeguarding. And in Idaho, ditching fossil fuels almost certainly won’t be possible without hydropower dams — a frustrating reality for environmental activists committed to tearing down dams.”

But notice that the framing still puts the sacrifice on the Earth. Do we stick with fossil fuels or kill the wildlife habitat in the desert? It’s a lose-lose proposition for the Earth. The article doesn’t seem to consider the idea we humans might instead drastically cut back our energy needs.

That’s not what a good partner looks like.

Indeed, for all our focus on growing clean energy (which is good), our energy needs are headed in the wrong direction. The world’s data centers, which power artificial intelligence and cloud storage for example, are on pace to consume as much energy as all of India by 2030.

Rather than waiting for policies to solve our problems, I invite you to contemplate how to be a better partner for the Earth yourself. What would mutually assured devotion look like for you? What are you prepared to do to show the Earth how much you truly care?

To my mind, this crazy relationship we’re all in is worth all the effort and sacrifices. Because it really is “until death do us part.”

Instead of trying to change the world, change your own behavior and watch the world change with you.