❤️ Why I Do What I Do: Creating More of What I Want to See in the World

Sometimes I stop and ask myself a simple question:

Why do I keep doing all of this?

Why do I keep creating, learning, growing, sharing, helping and building? Why put so much of myself into efforts centred around health, wellness, food, community, photography, education and helping others?

When I look back over my life, I think the answer becomes clearer.

I want to see more of what I believe the world needs—more love and compassion for all.

My Life Has Taught Me What Really Matters

My journey has never followed an easy or predictable path.

I was born with a partially cleft lip and palate and experienced hearing challenges. Later in life, I worked through co-dependency with the help of therapy, went through divorce and eventually remarried.

I have experienced financial hardship. I have lost a home because I could no longer work enough to keep up with the bills. At another point, I lost a home and virtually all of my material possessions to a fire.

And homelessness has been part of my story too.

I experienced homelessness at different stages of my life—as an older teenager, again as an adult, and later as a middle-aged man when I found myself essentially couch surfing, relying on temporary places to stay rather than having a secure home of my own.

Those experiences happened during very different stages of my life, but each gave me another perspective on what stability, security and dignity really mean.

When you have experienced housing instability yourself, homelessness stops being an abstract social issue.

You understand that the person without a permanent place to call home still has a history, abilities, hopes, fears, relationships and possibilities.

You understand how quickly circumstances can change.

And you understand that sometimes what separates stability from instability is much smaller than people might imagine.

That understanding is part of what I carry with me today.

Health Changed My Understanding Again

More than 15 years ago, I experienced a severe nosebleed that became serious enough to require an emergency arterial embolization procedure. A catheter was guided through an artery to reach the blood vessels supplying my nose so the bleeding could be stopped.

Years later came another life-changing chapter.

I experienced a major stroke.

I had to work on learning to communicate and walk again. After 29 days in hospital, I left needing a walker and oxygen. I later learned that I had Ebstein anomaly, a congenital heart defect, and a little more than a year after my stroke I underwent open-heart surgery.

Today, I regularly walk more than five kilometres a day. I have even walked more than 20 kilometres in an afternoon—not because I had somewhere 20 kilometres away that I needed to reach, but because I wanted to prove something to myself:

I could.

But this isn't an article about everything I have survived.

It is about what those experiences have helped me understand.

And, perhaps more importantly:

What am I going to do with that understanding?

I Cannot Change Everything, But I Can Change Something

There are many things in life we cannot control.

We cannot prevent every illness.

We cannot prevent every financial hardship.

We cannot solve homelessness overnight.

We cannot eliminate food insecurity by ourselves.

We cannot remove every barrier preventing someone from improving their health.

And we certainly cannot protect everyone from every difficult chapter life may bring.

But that does not mean we are powerless.

I don't need to change the entire world.

I can change something within it.

I can make a sandwich.

I can grow a plant.

I can share something I have learned.

I can take a photograph of something beautiful and perhaps remind someone to notice the beauty around them.

I can sit down and listen.

I can create opportunities to learn.

I can help someone discover how to grow nutritious plants in a small space.

I can share health and wellness information freely.

I can treat someone experiencing homelessness as a person rather than a problem.

I can offer dignity.

I can offer respect.

I can offer compassion.

Individually, these actions may seem small.

Together, they represent the kind of world I want to live in.

Understanding Homelessness Differently

My experiences with homelessness are one reason I look at people differently.

I know that homelessness does not have one face, one age, one background or one explanation.

I experienced it as a young person.

I experienced it as an adult.

And I experienced housing instability again much later in life.

The circumstances were different each time because life was different each time.

That matters.

It taught me not to assume that I understand someone's entire story simply because I can see their current circumstances.

Someone you pass today may have once owned a home.

They may have had a career.

They may be recovering from illness.

They may have experienced a relationship breakdown.

They may have lost employment.

They may have experienced trauma.

They may simply have reached a point where several difficult circumstances collided at once.

Or their story may be completely different.

That is why I try to begin with the person rather than the label.

Turning Experience Into Purpose

I have had to rebuild different parts of my life more than once.

That has taught me something important:

Rebuilding usually doesn't happen through one enormous action.

It happens through small actions repeated over time.

Recovery taught me that.

Starting over taught me that.

Growing plants teaches me that.

Community work continues to teach me that.

You plant something today knowing you may not see the result tomorrow.

You water it.

You care for it.

You learn from what doesn't work.

You adjust.

And eventually something begins to grow.

I believe people and communities can grow much the same way.

Love Is More Than a Word

I talk about love often.

But when I use that word, I am talking about something practical.

Love can be making food for someone who is hungry.

Love can be handing someone a bottle of water on a hot day.

Love can be sharing knowledge without putting it behind a paywall.

Love can be helping someone learn rather than simply telling them what they should do.

Love can be providing an opportunity while still expecting respect and responsibility.

Love can mean recognizing that someone is struggling without defining that person entirely by their struggle.

Love can mean creating opportunities instead of simply pointing out problems.

Love can also mean caring enough about yourself to continue learning, growing and rebuilding.

Love becomes meaningful through action.

That is the idea behind something I repeat often:

LIFE — Love Is For Everyone.

Not love only for people who agree with us.

Not love only for people who have money.

Not love only for people with housing.

Not love only for people who have made all the choices we believe they should have made.

Not love only for people whose struggles we understand.

Love is for everyone.

Compassion Doesn't Mean Ignoring Reality

My experiences have also taught me that compassion and truth need to exist together.

Helping someone does not require pretending difficult realities don't exist.

Homelessness is real.

Food insecurity is real.

Health challenges are real.

Addiction is real.

Financial barriers are real.

Mental and emotional struggles are real.

Loneliness is real.

Poor decisions can have consequences.

Personal responsibility matters.

But compassion doesn't require denying any of those realities.

It simply asks another question:

What can we constructively do from here?

Sometimes that means immediate assistance.

Sometimes it means education.

Sometimes it means creating an opportunity.

Sometimes it means setting boundaries.

Sometimes it means encouraging responsibility.

Sometimes it means simply listening.

And sometimes it means treating another human being like a human being during a time when much of the world may be looking past them.

Why Health and Wellness Matter So Much to Me

My interest in health and wellness isn't theoretical.

I know what it feels like when basic physical abilities are suddenly no longer guaranteed.

Walking matters differently when you have had to relearn how to walk.

Communication matters differently when you have struggled to communicate.

Housing matters differently when you have experienced life without stable housing.

Food matters differently when you understand what financial insecurity can do to the choices available to someone.

Growing food matters differently when you understand how nutrition, access, finances and health can be connected.

Learning matters differently when you have experienced having to rebuild abilities that once seemed automatic.

That is why so much of what I do today revolves around practical health and wellness, nutrition, growing food, education and reducing barriers.

I keep learning for myself.

Then I share what I learn so someone else may benefit too.

I Don't Want My Hardships to Be the End of the Story

I cannot rewrite the difficult chapters of my life.

Nor do I need to erase them.

Homelessness happened.

Financial hardship happened.

Loss happened.

The fire happened.

Health crises happened.

The stroke happened.

Heart surgery happened.

Those experiences are part of my story.

But they do not have to be the purpose of my story.

I would rather use what I have experienced to create something useful.

Pain can become understanding.

Homelessness can become empathy.

Loss can become perspective.

Recovery can become encouragement.

Knowledge can become education.

Food can become connection.

Growing can become empowerment.

Photography can become a reminder to notice beauty.

And lived experience can become an opportunity to understand another person a little better.

Creating What I Want to See

Perhaps that is the simplest explanation for why I do what I do.

I am trying to create more of what I want to see in the world.

More kindness.

More understanding.

More opportunities to learn.

More access to healthy choices.

More dignity for people experiencing difficult circumstances.

More people growing something for themselves.

More people sharing what they know.

More neighbours helping neighbours.

More people being seen as people rather than labels.

More beauty.

More hope.

More compassion.

More love for all.

I know I cannot create all of that by myself.

I don't need to.

I can create my little part of it.

Someone else can create theirs.

And those actions can begin to ripple outward.

❤️ The Ripples Continue

My life has shown me that circumstances can change incredibly quickly.

A home can disappear.

A job can disappear.

Health can change.

Abilities can be lost.

Relationships can change.

Financial security can disappear.

Plans can fall apart.

And sometimes we have to begin again.

I know what beginning again feels like.

I have done it more than once.

Perhaps that is another reason I keep going.

I know that where someone stands today does not necessarily tell us where they will stand tomorrow.

So I continue walking.

I continue learning.

I continue growing.

I continue taking photographs.

I continue making food.

I continue sharing knowledge.

I continue trying to create opportunities.

And I continue believing that small actions, done consistently and with purpose, can matter.

I am not doing these things because I believe I can fix everything that is wrong with the world.

I do them because I can contribute to what is right within it.

One plant.

One meal.

One photograph.

One conversation.

One opportunity.

One person.

One act of compassion at a time.

Because if I want to live in a world with more love and compassion, I cannot simply wait for somebody else to create it.

I have to help create it myself.

And maybe someone who sees those actions will create another ripple of their own.

Watch the ripples of love and compassion for all move through our community and beyond.

LIFE — Love Is For Everyone.