Alright, so humans love routine. Well, maybe routine is part of human nature, just as a wild animal spends his days doing the same thing forever, but we as humans have the ability to change our actions based on our thoughts.So when looking into what routine is and what it means you find that almost everything we do in our lives is based on routine. When you wake up in the morning you'll start your day in the same way, you brush your teeth in the same pattern. You might even eat the same thing for breakfast day after day. And sure, for the most part this is a good thing. After all, if you woke up every morning and didn't know what to do, well, you might not ever make it out of the house. Unfortunately, this desire for routine in our lives may be the biggest obstacle we must face if we want any real change in our world. Every day we are learning more and more about our planet and the big mistakes we have made over the past 100 years, and yet after reading an article in a magazine, newspaper, or on newschoolers.com about the damage we are doing to the environment you'll go to the store and use their plastic bags without thinking about it, simply because that's what you do. Hmm. Alright, I'll bring this into context for all the skiing oriented brains that are reading this. When you go up to the ski hill for a day of skiing, you will naturally start the day with a run you're familiar with, doing your "safety tricks" in the park, talking to people you already know, amongst countless other things that can fall into routine. These actions give you many positive feelings that are good and healthy like confidence, the illusion of safety, and a feeling of belonging. The downfall with this, is that all these emotions are fabricated in your brain and aren't an actual thing., and as strong as they may be, they will not DO anything - if you get what I mean. In order to truly make something of the day you have to throw routine out the window and get into the uncomfortable. Hitting a rail you were too scared to hit before, dropping a big cliff that scares you, learning a new trick on a jump - all of these things go against routine and yet they are the moment that create true happiness and keep your love for the sport alive. If you were to always stay in the realm of what is known, your body and brain would get bored of what it is doing and grow restless. Now, lets take a step back and look at live outside of skiing (yes, it actually exists out there). When North Americans talk about "global warming", "climate change", and "renewable resources" the conversation will almost always touch on the dirty thoughts of losing a part of what we have. Weather people are concerned about losing money, losing their big house with all of their electronics, losing something. This fear of the unknown is what gravitates people into routine and traps them in their lives. People believe they have to work year round full time jobs that don't represent their passions in life, they believe that a car is a right, they believe the world should change and yet don't do anything themselves in order to make change actually happen. This is the biggest problem in our world right now. The technology to build a environmentally friendly society is available to all of us, we can feed the world population from the rich to the poor with available food today, we can do all these great things, and yet we are doing the same things our great grandparents were doing, the only difference is - they didn't know better. Now, what I am mentioning is one extreme of this topic. It will take many, many generations to change the global system, but as an individual - being able to realize what is actually needed and what is simply routine is one of the most important epiphanies one can experience. My reasoning behind this little rant is to change the way you look at the world. Everyone and their mother are talking about "global warming" like it's going out of style. The newspapers are writing about it, scientists are researching it, and article after article address's the problem to the masses, and yet hardly anyone is giving real solutions to the problem. The best they can come up with is shit like "turn your lights off when you're not in the room" and other bullshit "solutions" that are just common sense for a society that lost it's sense decades ago.No, your answers aren't going to be delivered to you by the Fed Ex man, or spoon feed to you by your politicians. It is up to you to do your own research and find out fact from fiction and take action against the consuming world we have become. So I am writing this to give all of you a mission. In every aspect of your life, analyze the actions you take from their creation to their completion and see if it is truly the best way of doing it. When looking for a new house to live it, look past the colours on the wall and see what the house really is. When going to the store, think about what you're buying, where it's coming from, how much is costs (and why). When making fun of someone or something that is different, try exploring the possibilities that there is joy in what you don't understand. Even in little things like the location of your bed in relation to your bedroom. Switch the position of the bed, hell, sleep with your head at the end and your feet against the wall one night. Never accept stagnation, always have a goal in your life that is attainable, and never allow something to be "good enough" when striving for perfection. This is your life. This is your world. Go make it one that's worth calling your own.