What change, big or small, would you like your blog to make in the world?

Driving around Colorado and taking pictures isn’t a plan, to make the world a better place but here I am…

My birthday was earlier this year and I received a birthday wish on social media with a link to a story about a woman who wanted her 70th decade to be filled with new experiences, big and small. I set out to have 60 new experiences by my 60th birthday, February of 2025. I’m half way there.

Documenting my successes and failures of exploring and trying new things here has had more impact than I realized.

I see the analytics here, I know my little blog isn’t the one that will have thousands of followers with hundreds of likes. And that ok, that is not why I did this. I didn’t want to monetize the documentation of adventures, this as just for me.

But people are reading and sharing that I didn’t expect. I got a text from a friend in California that I haven’t seen since 1988 and they read my blog and it inspired them to try out every national park in the US. They too started a blog for their adventures.

On one of my excursions, I shared what I was doing with a lady sitting on a bench with me at a restaurant. She opened her phone and began reading. Later when we were eating, she came over to tell me she read everything and loved the idea and her and her grandchildren are going to explore Denver and the surrounding communities to look for 5 beautiful things every weekend.

It’s changed me too. I’m an introvert. Somewhat of an extroverted introvert. But, I’m finding the fearlessness of my 20s and 30s again. My kids are looking for new things that we can all do together. Lots of them have a part where mom gets a tattoo, but I’m not there yet and may never be.

The change I would like to see in the world? Tossing a small pebble into a lake, watching the ripples grow, hearing how friends and their families are setting out to make their day better.

In a world that is unkind, that speaks about coming together, about not hating someone because they look different than you, vote different than you, goes to a different church than you or no church at all, if we can all stop for a moment and look for something that has beauty … wow, that would be great.

Imagine if we all stopped the crazy stuff, the bombs and bullets began to gather dust, people stopped watching the news media and started talking to their neighbors, or explored their city, their state.

What if we were able to just be kind, that when we were out exploring, looking for beauty in nature, in music, in movies, theater, or literature and because we’re seeking beauty, we found it … in each other.

It started as a pebble in the lake and maybe I will see the ripples on other shores.

Ripples of kindness and beauty, that’s what I would like.