I’ve always been a person who wants to see a lot of change in the world, but have fallen victim to the nagging voice in my head saying ‘your only one person what can you really do.’ Hopefully this past weekend was a break in that line of thinking for me; it was the first time I saw a charitable event I thought of actually happen, and I’m pretty amp’d how it went down.
A few months ago, around late November ‘07, I came up with this idea to hold a bouldering competition that would benefit a group called Conservacion Patagonica*. I don’t know what made me want to organize such an event, whether it was insanity from the crappy winter weather, that Pittsburgh is known for, or being stuck at a crappy job and not climbing enough, but either way one rainy Pittsburgh day the idea popped into my head and I ran with it.
My good friend Todd and I pitched the idea to the coordinator at the University of Pittsburgh’s climbing gym and he went for it, we were on our way. I was stoked, full of energy we compiled a list of all the companies we could think of, and sent letters requesting donations to each. The response we got was great! BD, Metolius, Trango, Patagonia, Sterling, Climb On, Evolv, Organic, Urban Climber, Climbing Mag, and a local retailer Exkursion all jump on board.
After a lot of planning and setting the event went off more or less with out a hitch, it was pretty sweet to see something I had conceived a few months ago actually happen. In the end we ended up raining $1215.00 dollars for Conservacion Patagonica; not a bad chunk of change.
Hopefully, in the future I’ll have the motivation to participate in more events that support a good cause; there sure are plenty of them out there. One I’m really psyched on is called “Climb Up So Kids Can Grow Up.”
And I guess, even though we can't see the positive effects of our actions on the world all the time, every little bit helps change the world slowly but surely.
*Conservacion Patagonica is dedicated to “preserving intact ecosystems by acquiring and protecting privately owned wild lands, and returning these landholdings to the public domain for permanent protection in the form of national parks or reserves”
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Monday, February 18, 2008
Sometimes Life Gets In The Way.....
I grew up in a suburb about 45 minutes north of Philadelphia, in retrospect a decent place to grow up, not great but it was safe and gave me plenty of space to roam and play. My biggest complaint growing up was that it was boring, if you didn’t have a car something as simple as going to the mall wasn’t going to happen. I was always seeking the next big adventure maybe it was because I had an over active imagination and watched one too many Indiana Jones Movies, who know? All I can say is I wanted adventure and my nice cozy suburb wasn’t doing it!
Don’t get me wrong, my friends and I had some great times, but I wanted more; more places to travel, more exciting things to do, more adventure! When it finally came time to go off to college I wanted to get out of that town, run off to a city….I ended up going to University of Pittsburgh. Not a bad city, I was finally in a place where things happened; “things” being anything, it didn’t matter, as long as there was more then cookie cutter houses. I also knew, for sure, I wanted to go into finance; I wanted to work on Wall Street, there was no doubt in my mind. But in between my junior year in school and now something changed, I changed, my out look on life changed.
My junior year, I learned to rock climb, and I fell in love with the sport, the places it took me and the community that goes hand in hand with the sport. Now, two and a half years later I’m sitting here, in a cubicle, at a job I couldn’t care less about wishing I could be climbing, and if I’m not climbing, I want to be working in the outdoor industry, where it seems people realize there are things that are more important then the almighty dollar.
My point with this ridiculously long analysis of my life, a life I feel is pretty par for the course, is that something must be fundamentally wrong with the system we’ve created; at least it seems that way to me.
We live in a system where you go to school for 12 years until you’re 18, then you get shipped off to college. In college you get schooled more and most of us accrue astronomical amounts of debit. Sure, college life does lend itself to personal development and grow but more and more students are expected to have internships every summer and participate in extra curricular activities; basically, using their free time to prepare for ‘real’ life, as if they are living a fake one. Finally, graduation day and you’re expected to start a job, or if you’re lucky your career. We work 9 am to 5pm everyday, 5 days a week, until we’re 65 and retire, maybe taking 2 or 3 weeks every year for a vacation. No where in the average life do we really get a chance to discover who we are and what we love, most people are stuck in the ‘rat race’, trying to get to that proverbial ‘pot of gold’ at the end of the rainbow.
Now, 23 and having a quarter life crisis, I realize that all those cliché quotes like “all that glitters is not gold” are more true then I ever could have guessed. Hopefully, once the debt I have amassed from college is gone I can go and do what I love, climbing rocks. And maybe with a little luck I’ll discover a profession that will allow me to interact with the climbing community while earning a pretty penny.
Until then I’ll just have to deal with the fact that in the system we live in sometimes life gets in the way of living……
Cheers,
CMT
“If you’re too focused on the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, you might just miss the rainbow.”
-CBS Sunday Morning, “Fast Draw: Money Matters” Josh Landis and Mitch Butler. 02/18/08.
Don’t get me wrong, my friends and I had some great times, but I wanted more; more places to travel, more exciting things to do, more adventure! When it finally came time to go off to college I wanted to get out of that town, run off to a city….I ended up going to University of Pittsburgh. Not a bad city, I was finally in a place where things happened; “things” being anything, it didn’t matter, as long as there was more then cookie cutter houses. I also knew, for sure, I wanted to go into finance; I wanted to work on Wall Street, there was no doubt in my mind. But in between my junior year in school and now something changed, I changed, my out look on life changed.
My junior year, I learned to rock climb, and I fell in love with the sport, the places it took me and the community that goes hand in hand with the sport. Now, two and a half years later I’m sitting here, in a cubicle, at a job I couldn’t care less about wishing I could be climbing, and if I’m not climbing, I want to be working in the outdoor industry, where it seems people realize there are things that are more important then the almighty dollar.
My point with this ridiculously long analysis of my life, a life I feel is pretty par for the course, is that something must be fundamentally wrong with the system we’ve created; at least it seems that way to me.
We live in a system where you go to school for 12 years until you’re 18, then you get shipped off to college. In college you get schooled more and most of us accrue astronomical amounts of debit. Sure, college life does lend itself to personal development and grow but more and more students are expected to have internships every summer and participate in extra curricular activities; basically, using their free time to prepare for ‘real’ life, as if they are living a fake one. Finally, graduation day and you’re expected to start a job, or if you’re lucky your career. We work 9 am to 5pm everyday, 5 days a week, until we’re 65 and retire, maybe taking 2 or 3 weeks every year for a vacation. No where in the average life do we really get a chance to discover who we are and what we love, most people are stuck in the ‘rat race’, trying to get to that proverbial ‘pot of gold’ at the end of the rainbow.
Now, 23 and having a quarter life crisis, I realize that all those cliché quotes like “all that glitters is not gold” are more true then I ever could have guessed. Hopefully, once the debt I have amassed from college is gone I can go and do what I love, climbing rocks. And maybe with a little luck I’ll discover a profession that will allow me to interact with the climbing community while earning a pretty penny.
Until then I’ll just have to deal with the fact that in the system we live in sometimes life gets in the way of living……
Cheers,
CMT
“If you’re too focused on the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, you might just miss the rainbow.”
-CBS Sunday Morning, “Fast Draw: Money Matters” Josh Landis and Mitch Butler. 02/18/08.
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