It’s Time To Put Your Underpants on the Outside!

Posted by Cate Bolt on 10 August 2009 | 0 Comments

Tags: orangutans, indonesia, conservation, reforestation

WOOT! I’m so freakin’ pumped up right now I can’t even begin to explain. At the end of last week I was really starting to get quite antsy, almost depressed at the way things were progressing… or more to the point NOT progressing. Those who know me really well usually understand that this “antsy” phase is followed by the “downright pissed off and now it’s time for some bloody action” phase, which I tend to self administer when I’m over feeling sorry for myself. This is generally when stuff starts to happen.

I’ve been a big fan of motivation icon Anthony Robbins for a long time. He often speaks of aligning yourself with people who are several steps ahead of you, and generally at least one step ahead of where you want to get yourself. Unfortunately as humans we have this tendency to align ourselves with people who are around our level or lower. Why? Because they make us feel good about ourselves. “yeah, I may be over weight … but woah, have you seen Jackie lately?? She’s really fat!”

I know that looks really cruel on paper, but you know you’ve done it. We all do it. You measure yourself with a wonky yard stick to make yourself feel better. And what does that achieve? Well, short answer is it achieves jack-shit. It achieves a delusional comfort zone in which you can marinade yourself in hypocrisy.

I’ve been a little bit offended lately that people don’t necessarily want to hear about what I’m doing. Or they have some snide remarks thrown at me like the sarcastic “well lardy-da – don’t we all wish we could be like you?!” It got to me for a bit, and then I thought “ya know what – stuff you all” If you want to come along on the journey then that’s great, if you don’t then good luck to you also. Nothing I write in these pages in meant to make anyone feel small or, on the flip side, make me feel any bigger (and I’ll prove that by the story I’m about to tell) It’s just a real and accurate account of what I’m doing, how I’m feeling and the progress we’re making.

SO why am I so pumped? Firstly, I’ve had the opportunity to be exposed to some awesome people, who I’m going to mention quickly. Susan Wallis – who competed in the City to Surf in Sydney yesterday to raise money for the Cerebral Palsy Support Network, please read her story I think she is just amazing.

And Bev Rolt got me pumped up again by the work she does to support the Indonesian people. I’m going to make a separate post to talk about how you can help Bev, in a sec.

But if you’re passionate about orangutans (as I am) then there are a few names in orangutan circles that you’ll probably know. One of them is Michelle Desilets. I first came across Michelle through Twitter (surprise!) and have since read a great deal about that amazing things she’s been achieving in Indonesia along with Lone Droscher Nielsen and, no doubt, a cast of thousands, involved in reforestation and preservation of natural habitat, rehabilitation of injured animals and refuge for orphaned infants.

The list of what they do just goes on and on! And as if she’s not busy enough, she still gets on Twitter every day and does her damnedest to raise awareness of the issues they are facing. So I was somewhat hesitant in contacting Michelle because I figured she’s got a lot to deal with and she is surely incredibly busy. But I also recognised the need to surround myself with people who really know what they’re doing.

As is also human nature I really didn’t want to come across as a complete idiot who had no idea what they were talking about and be perceived as a total fool. When I all reality, we aren’t seasoned Orangutan experts – we’re a mum & dad team from Australia. I figured this can go one of two ways; she can email me back and say “what on God’s green earth are you doing? Are you mental? Stick to what you know” (which is alarmingly similar to another email I received a few weeks back). Or she will be a compassionate and sharing human who recognises that these sorts of dreams require some level of insanity and embrace that! Luckily for me I got the latter.

What a top chick! Michelle was kind enough to go into explaining the land requirements and an overview of what costs would be involved for the bare essentials. And you know, from the outset I had some rough estimate in my head of what sort of money might be involved in this sort of project. And I was brave enough to admit to the public that I didn’t know what I was doing and that there would obviously be days where a big fat penny drops from the sky and I’m left rubbing my head in bewilderment LOL.

 Little did I know how huge that penny would be. After reading Michelle’s email last night and then quickly forwarding it to Rick so that I could watch his head explode as well, I was absolutely dumbfounded. I sat there for ages with a calculator going over the numbers trying to get my head around the magnitude of what we would need to achieve. After about the 15th read of all the information I stared at the roof and said “there’s no way we can do that” and I gave up… for about 90 seconds.

Why not? Why can’t we? If you can raise $100,000 surely there’s no reason why you can’t raise $1,000,000. It’s the same thing, it’s just bigger. It’s like people with 3 kids saying they couldn’t raise 9. Of course you could! You’ve already got the experience; you don’t have to learn it 9 times over. It’s just bigger.

But if you’re going to achieve great things in life you really do need to surround yourself with great people. So I’m totally pumped to have made contact with Michelle, and even though I feel like a complete idiot in my meager initial assumption of what costs might be involved with the wildlife refuge side of our project – I’m filled with a brand new excitement for what lies ahead.

Please check out the work that Michelle is doing through BOS and OLT and follow Michelle on Twitter

 

Come on people it’s time to make like superheros, we’ve got a friggin world to save!