People can't change.
I've heard it from uncles, professors, novelists, business associates, musicians, leaders and friends. I've seen the maxim manifested in innumerable ways across a diverse mix of people, habits, circumstances and patterns. Change is uncomfortable. It's risky. It invites failure and subsequent embarrassment. I believed that people never changed.
Two years ago, I changed.
Shortly after my wife found out she was pregnant with our twins, we had some friends over to celebrate. After a few hours my wife was exhausted from the day and everyone went home except one old friend of mine. He wanted to talk some more. So my wife went to bed and he and I sat around our old kitchen table to catch up, just as we'd done hundreds of times before. He was the person who asked the question that's been slowly changing my behavior ever since.
"What kind of world do you want your children to live in?"
Did I want my kids to grow up in a world where vegetables don't have the same DNA sequence as they did when I was a kid? Did I want my kids to grow up in a hotter world, with no great wild places left? Did I want my kids' generation to be one defined by wars over oil, coal and fresh water?
While we're not perfect, we're trying to be better every day. Hugatee is a natural extension of our effort to be good stewards of the planet and its resources.
To be sure, buying a bunch of Hugatees isn't going to save the world - there's nothing you can buy that will. But maybe if someone sees the message on one of our shirts, they'll begin to think about the world in terms of what they can do for it, rather than what they can take from it. Maybe they become the friend who asks the question that starts the change in others.