Are you the person you want to be 10 years from now? - Sammi Jaeger

Hey Hey,

This week's Friday Fuel Up is all about The World.

When I was 5 years old, I rode an elephant in Thailand with my dad while my grandma snapped pictures from the sideline. At that moment I fell in love with these beautiful animals; strong, beautiful, playful and weirdly graceful given their size. Ohh and did you know they are pregnant for almost 2 years!?

I now know and understand that the practice of exploiting animals for tourism is wrong for all kinds of reasons. But I didn’t know that in 1994 and I still held the belief that it was okay when my husband Nathan and I rode an elephant in 2011 while in Indonesia. 

I’m kinda embarrassed to share the pictures because I feel like I was a bit late to the party on this shift in thinking but as a visual human myself, pictures can be worth a thousand words. It's now a decade later and I’ve been able to reconcile that I did the wrong thing and that although I did a bad thing, I am not a bad person.

Through some humility and a willingness to be open to other ideas, I was able to learn, evolve and grow. Ultimately making different decisions and moving from being part of the problem to part of the solution. 

I’ve still been able to bring the joy of elephants into my life but now I am much more conscious about the practices that go on to create experiences that include animals. And in 2018 I had the best elephant experience by far from the back-seat of a safari jeep in a national park in Sri Lanka!

There are so many things we do in our lives and relationships without really thinking about it or examining where that thought, idea, belief or pattern came from. 

Those things impact everything. From the way we move our bodies, connect with other people, show up in the workplace, our relationships and the world.

Being willing to self reflect and rethink my perspective and beliefs continues to change me. And I hope the person I am today is completely different from the person I am a decade from now.

I want to show up in the world to be the change for so many of the big problems in the world but that is going to mean that I myself need to change. 

So today’s opportunity to add more fuel is to take a moment of self reflection and ask
What could I be doing differently in my relationship with myself?
What could I be doing differently in my relationship with my person?
What could I be doing differently in my relationship with the world?

Then listen to the answer and start being the change. 

Sammi Jaeger
@sammisomewhere