It's International Sloth Day! How Cool is That!

Sloths are one of the cutest animals on the planet!  They are also one of the slowest- unless we are talking about a swimming sloth, then they move faster and can hold their breath for 40 minutes (www.travelandleisure.com).  Their faces are just so very cute; they have this look that seems to be saying they have the secret to happiness all figured out.  And sweet.  Just super sweet.

I love animals and find that there is a lot more to them than they are often given full-credit for.  Spend some time sitting within an animal’s world and I guarantee you will come away feeling amazed.  Our perception is our reality, and their perception of the world is at once more simple (because of how they view their world) and more complicated (because of how we perceive them) than ours seems to be.  I’d love to spend some time in a sloth’s world for a day.  As they don’t exactly live around the corner from me, I’ll have to settle for books and shows and those YouTube videos like the one of the man helping the sloth to cross a road where the sloth holds his/her arms out like Superman.  Have you seen that one?  It’s so cute!  And is another reminder of the difference that one person can make.

So in honor of this International Sloth Day, I’d like to propose a challenge with a few different parts:

1)      Pick an animal you’re interested in (could be a sloth in honor of the day, or it could be any animal you’d like) and learn something about them.  Where do they live?  What do they eat?  What challenges are they facing right now?

2)     Do something with the information that you’ve learned.  Write about it; post it somewhere; or, even better, use that knowledge and build it into awareness, and then take that and make a difference for that animal.  Attend a rally or donate to a conservation fund.  If you can, maybe even take a trip to the place that animal lives and see it with your own eyes.

3)     Then, keep learning and keep connecting to the world all around you!