World Oceans Day

"To care about the ocean in the 21st century is to feel conflicted: despairing what’s been lost, optimistic about what we can save."

-National Geographic.

As cheesy as it sounds, every day feels like World Oceans Day to me. I have always felt such a deep sense of commitment to the ocean and ensuring its resiliency. In my professional opinion, oceans are pretty damn great and the struggle continues to preserve them and their inhabitants. Billions of pounds of trash enter the ocean every year, the climate is changing, the tides are shifting, invasive species have invaded nearly very coast— and still the ocean persists. And while it survives and adapts, it is not an excuse to become complacent. 

Resilience is my word of the week. If you asked me a year ago what I thought this word meant I would’ve told you it is about ‘coming out on top’ or ‘thriving even though things are hard’ but I have since changed my mind. Resilience coincides with grit and taking some loses. It is not about winning the fight, but instead standing back up every time you lose. A lot of us have lost this year, some more than others, and some more times than others. 

When fighting the fight against climate change, pollution, and all of the other global earth-threatening crises, you have to be ready to take more loses than wins, and stick with it anyway because its the right thing to do. Discouragement is natural, but I also firmly believe that nothing worth fighting for comes easily. A colleague said to me yesterday ‘youre not going to get anywhere without ruffling a few feathers’, and that includes your own. Its okay to be uncomfortable, to try new things, get it wrong, and then try something else. Perfectionism can be the biggest barrier to progress. So for those who need to hear it, the world and its oceans depends on our resiliency not our perfectionism. 

Do something good for the ocean today and everyday.