If only people could really observe the world and value our environment for what it truly is. It’s a picturesque place that most people ignore. They don’t look at the fine points of our earth and really absorb it; we tend to just bypass the small stuff and focus on the nonsense in our lives. It took me awhile to stop taking the exquisiteness of my atmosphere for granted. Until I did, I was completely oblivious to the astonishment of God’s creation.

I can still recall the day we bought our diminutive lake house on the water of Lake Conroe. The new, unused “Welcome” mat, the fresh scent of paint in the air, I knew it was going to be a great summer! But then I started to realize a small predicament set in. The mucky lake water, the itchy grass glued to my wet feet, it was a pretty icky feeling. I would take up to three showers a day just to keep the germs and filth off me. For some reason I just didn’t like climbing trees, planting flowers, or being apart of anything to do with nature. I was never able to truly grasp what was so special about it. I remember sitting in my room, gazing out the window, watching all the other kids running around all hot and sweaty, and diving in the lake. I noticed that they all had something in common; they were all having the time of their lives. I remember thinking to my self, “What’s the difference between me and them? What am I missing?”

When I was about ten years old my dad took me on a trip to France. Of course we traveled up the Eiffel tower and went through all the anticipated tourist sites, but on the last day of our trip we decided to just meander up and down the streets of the city. We were passing by an open courtyard when I noticed numerous clusters of people scattered all about. There were canvases of all sizes with meticulous images varying from autumn forests to rushing streams. With good postures and weightless fingers they were all etching bright, multi-colored paintings of the most scenic memories their minds contained. You could see their passion in nature seeping through the art. And it was all coming from the recollection of images in their heads. I envied all their work. Not because I wanted to paint like them, but because I wanted to think like them. I wanted to embrace my surroundings and express my thoughts. But how can you be so avid about something you’ve never experienced? I surely didn’t know, at least not yet.

The following summer me and my dad took another “father-daughter bonding trip” to the one and only Anchorage, Alaska. Going into the trip, my excitement revolved around the statement of it always being daylight and the fact that they had planes that could land on top of water. Obviously, my expectations for Alaska were on a rather low scale because when I look back on the experience I can honestly say it was life changing! I remember on the third day we decided to hike up this “mountain” that was near where we were staying. With me still being in elementary school, it seemed as if it would take a person all day to hike to the top of it. You could barley see the peak of the mountain though, for it was covered by a low cloud that streamed across the sky. I didn’t think much of climbing the mountain, until I reached the top. It took me a second though to realize what surrounded me. This place I had been confronted by, this place that made me open my eyes to the world unseen, planted itself in a perfect circle in every direction around me. You could see the ends of forever; you could see from the sparkles of dew on my tennis shoes to the towering branches tilting over the circumference of the earth. The feeling of standing on top of a mountain, overlooking the world, and being able to see nothing but an infamous sea of green, is truly astounding. It creates a feeling in you that can’t be ignored; you just have to embrace it. It may have taken me quite a journey but I discovered what I was missing, what I was ever so desperate for, and that was the infatuation I was lacking for this planet and the environment it possess. The design of this world is so beyond belief that I don’t see how I could have possibly disregarded it. From each flower that blossoms, to each glacier that shifts, every aspect of nature is overflowing with so much perfection; and it’s all for us. How can you not consider that a gift beyond what we’re worth?

When an experience like that meets you face to face you can’t ignore it any longer. It’s like a calling for you to do something about it. You have to grasp your discovery, your experience, and teach it to the rest of the world. For myself, I plan to be an environmentalist and be that one person who stands up for what they believe in and gets the appropriate message across the entire nation. I also want to be a nature photographer. With this I would be able to back my words up with actual evidence of how amazingly beautiful the environment we live in really is. This is something everyone should realize and be apart of. I’m in. Are you?