It’s Cascadia Day and we encourage you to begin a new tradition of making a Cascadia Day resolution! Most make New Year Resolutions, but many break them. According to Forbes Magazine, a slim 24% actually stick with good intentions or decisions to make changes at the beginning of each year. So on this lovely Cascadia Day, in the middle of a wonderful Cascadian spring, it’s probably safe to say that many of our 2017 resolutions have already been long forgotten.
It’s nothing to feel bad about. Part of the problem is that a year really is a long time to keep a promise, and knowing that we’ve signed on for a whole year can be pretty intimidating and tedious. By the time we’ve gotten through half of January, the rest of the month seems like a challenge, let alone a whole year.The great news is, CascadiaNow! has a solution for this yearly problem and it’s called a Cascadia Day resolution! By re-framing goals to be doneon a smaller scale, we are more likely to hold ourselves accountable for completing them in a shorter time frame. If your New Year Resolutions are long gone, make a resolution today to try again, for the rest of the month. Or maybe just until summer begins. Then reevaluate your progress, and resolve something new or to keep on going!
CascadiaNow! has set out to create Cascadia Day resolutions that all can participate in to help build up our community and strengthen our bioregion. We suggest one Cascadia Day resolution that is a very simple change that will actually make a very tangible impact when it comes to Cascadia. The number one obstacle to the growth of the Cascadia movement is awareness. A vast majority of people in the region simply don’t know what Cascadia really is. So a quick and easy way to contribute to the growth of the Cascadia movement is to say Cascadia!
Whenever anything regarding the “Pacific Northwest” comes up in conversation, simply say “Cascadia” instead. That’s it. By using the term Cascadia you can spark conversation and bring awareness to the bioregion and the movement. It is through spreading knowledge about Cascadia that we will begin to make real change in the minds of others, sparking a chain reaction of curiosity and understanding.
So, this Cascadia Day, commit to this: replace “Pacific Northwest” with “Cascadia”. In the words of CN! member Ryan Moothart, “The more you say it, the more natural it becomes. It’s important and empowering. We’re more than just a distant part of the United States and Canada. We have a unique bioregion based in an environment with a corresponding identity that the rest of continent does not possess. The more you say ‘Pacific Northwest’ after acknowledging this fact, the more you reinforce the notion that we don’t matter. So, say ‘Cascadia’ instead.”