Humans of UCSF: Lessons from the Great Outdoors

“I believe that getting outdoors isn't so much a way to get into nature, as it is a way to remember that I am eternally a part of nature. When I leave our human centric environments for wilder places, I create an opportunity to enter the woods or the ocean or the mountains as a student, with all the life around me being my teacher. There, the lessons are ones of connectedness, interdependence, and generosity. There, the advice of giving more than you take, leaving a place better than you find it, and doing unto others as you would have done to you, takes on a much broader scope. No longer is the conversation simply among humans, but among all the other beings that make their home alongside us. How differently I have learned to tread knowing that my life is supported by so many others, and that I have the grand privilege to feed those relationships.”
Jacob Scheidler
Guide, UCSF Fitness & Recreation Outdoor Programs