Today we were asked to write about either our favorite cause or if we didn’t fancy writing about that the other suggestion was to write about how the world would look if we were in charge of things. First it is my belief we are more in charge of the way our world looks than we sometimes think we are, but that is a topic I will save for another day.

I haven’t narrowed my interests down to one favorite cause. I feel passionate about a number of things.

Making the Outdoors Accessible

My husband is an avid fly fisherman. He owns the company Wasatch Custom Angling. Even before he bought this company in 2010 they had a history of working with both:

Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing, Inc.™, an organization dedicated to the physical and emotional rehabilitation of disabled active military service personnel and disabled veterans through fly fishing and associated activities including education and outings

Casting for Recovery, an organization dedicated to supporting women in the aftermath of a breast cancer diagnosis.
He has continued to work with both of these organizations, even expanding the company’s involvement.

He also has a guide service formerly called Solutions & Mentoring Adventure Coaching where he combined an outdoor experience (most often fly fishing) sprinkled with a bit of coaching for his clients.

Recently, inspired by the work he has already been doing with Project Healing Waters and Casting for Recovery, his own struggles as a disabled vet, and numerous other prompts from the universe he has slowly begun to shift the focus of his guide service to make the outdoor experience more accessible to the disabled. He has had a customized drift boat made. It looks like one of those old WWll landing crafts where the front drops down for vehicle off loading. His boat has a drop down front so a wheel chair can be easily rolled on and off board. He also has several all terrain wheel chairs and adaptive fishing equipment. He has been raising money for further equipment, especially an wheel chair accessible van.

So yeah I think this is a great endeavor. Fishing may not be my passion, but nature is and am thrilled to know more people will be able to enjoy and experience it because of his efforts. I’m proud of him and like to toot his horn.

Protecting the Environment

Being that I have a passion for nature I have concerns for our environment. I am the daughter of a retired forester who at 84 years young is still very involved in conservation issues. I am sure his concern for the environment has rubbed off on me. I offer my support where I can and do my part by recycling, upcycling, composting. And there is more I could do.

Re-Imagine Education

But if I had the power to whip out my wand and change the world and could only address one of the many issues facing us today…I would revamp education.  I think if we had more enlightened and broader opportunities for education this would go a long way toward helping us address many of our other challenges. I am not sure of the answers or solutions. But I do believe we currently have an out of date, out of step education system. A system, which was designed to supply a competent workforce during the industrial age.

Today’s economics are vastly different. Teaching the basic academics may still be important, but more important is to teach how to learn and how to creatively solve problems.

Imagine how different the world would be if we actually taught (or just created environments conducive to learning/exploring) innovation, entrepreneurism, yoga (or tai chi or chi gong) and meditation, nutrition, non violent communication, the creative arts, conservation and ____.

Imagine a environment where intuition, gratitude, and service were encouraged. Where collaboration was encouraged, not that a bit of competition can’t be fun too, but let’s create an environment where competition is taken less seriously.

Maybe I am a dreamer, but I think how we educate, especially our youth influences the future in profound ways.

I’d like to have some influence on changing education. I’m keeping my eyes, ears and heart open for ways in which I am particularly suited to help make a difference.