What does nature ask of our homes?

I love philosopher Alain de Botton so much that we quoted him more than once in our wedding vows. Nearly everything out of his mouth and pen is original and thought-provoking. His book The Architecture of Happiness is one of the few books I own. In it he says this about our homes’ responsibility to the earth:

“We owe it to the fields that our houses will not be the inferiors of the virgin land they have replaced. We owe it to the worms and the trees that the building we cover them with will stand as promises of the highest and most intelligent kinds of happiness.” 

― Alain de Botton, The Architecture of Happiness

That is a tall order. What would your home look like if it were this "promise of the highest and most intelligent kinds of happiness?"

Would you let clothes wrinkle on the closet floor for months? Would you keep junk rooms just because you have the luxury of space and can close the door on it? Would you fill it with unnecessary cheap, disposable items when a few quality ones (or none) would suffice? Would you spend just a few more minutes tending to it, treating it as something borrowing from and supported by the earth?

Having worked in nearly a thousand homes, I am fully aware of the multiple (and valid) reasons why people live in homes that don’t invoke the kind of happiness de Botton speaks of. However, this spiritual and environmental perspective is one I hope seeps into every decision we make regarding the thought we put into our space. He’s not telling us to spend more money on decor or storage boxes, but to do whatever we personally need to do so that our little plot of the earth feels like it warranted the occupation of the nature that sacrificed for it.

What in your home can you add, subtract, or change that would make the worms and trees proud to give themselves to it? Please share in the comments!