Pretty spot on, if you ask me...

Of course we all have an interest in our discipline and everything connected to it, and for many of us this interest has naturally evolved into something that allows us to also get paid for our hard work, and thus keep doing it - and just to be absolutely clear: Getting paid for delivering a great service or product that you've poured you're heart and soul into refining, is perfectly fine with me! My own goal is to be able to keep doing this, sure, but only as long as I can keep my soul in it and keep my ethics, moral and values intact. This is an extremely difficult challenge in todays society and something that hardly any of my friends who went to business school seem capable of understanding. But it's not a challenge I personally intend to back down from, and no form of international politics or organizations will change what I do, and the way I work, on a daily basis.

I actually didn't come up with the title of this piece; Protecting Our Heritage and Fostering Creativity is a central UNESCO theme and, again, something that seems to echo the many voices of our community that are battling to be heard right now. For me this title very accurately sums up the one reason I am taking an active stance and putting in work. Nothing else. If politics and some kind of structure will help us all achieve this goal, I am all for it, in spite of all the noise. However, casting a solution from the same old mold is not going to work; why do we believe we'll succeed where pretty much everyone else have failed? We have gotten to where we are now because we do things differently and well - if we turn around now, what's going to set us apart...?

So what am I trying to say? I'm not exactly sure, except that it feels like history has blessed us with a rare and fragile opportunity; an opportunity to make a change from within - not just for ourselves and what we do and love, but for physical education and sport in general. I urge everyone to pay attention. Listen. Communicate. Seek out the knowledge. Protect our heritage. Stay creative and don't copy - especially not the mistakes of others. Let's get to work and get it right!

I truly hope this opportunity will not be wasted...