Don’t Be Excellent; Be Actual.


Dive In and #LiveUnfiltered with PADI

#LiveUnfiltered is greater than only a fashionable hashtag or PADI’s newest marketing campaign to get extra divers into the water. Quite, it’s an invite into a brand new, extra relaxed, extra actual way of life – and hopefully, one with numerous diving!


The Strain to Be Excellent

Let’s face it. In at the moment’s world, there’s no “off” swap. Somebody is continually watching, and social media can really feel ruthless. Moreover, there’s unstated stress and we “ought to” be blissful and excellent – like everybody else appears to be.

In actuality, nevertheless, what we see on social media has been curated and filtered. At greatest, the filters we impose on ourselves really feel pretend; at worst, they are often oppressive and stifling. Feeling like we now have to look a sure method on a regular basis can take the enjoyable and pleasure out of the issues we do. 

“For years, I’ve struggled with evaluating my life to the proper lives of my friends as portrayed on their numerous social media accounts,” mentioned Sarah Morlock, one in all PADI’s International Social Media Consultants for the #LiveUnfiltered marketing campaign. As a full-time traveler, Morlock feels the stress to solely publish pictures “as attractive… [as those of] journey influencers” and admits that this typically makes her travels much less satisfying. 

Furthermore, she added, “I do know I’m not the one one which struggles with this. I do know I’m not the one one which has checked out themselves and questioned why they aren’t that fairly. I do know I’m not the one one who has been cyberbullied. And, I do know I’m not the one one who has struggled with anxiousness and melancholy associated to the stress to maintain up with their friends.”

Certainly these emotions and fears are human and common. That’s why PADI believes within the significance of discovering methods to #LiveUnfiltered – like diving.


Selecting to Dwell Your Most Genuine Life

So, why is it necessary that we #LiveUnfiltered? 

It’s “eliminating the floor stress to have an ideal life,” Morlock explains. Moreover, once we cease making an attempt to be excellent, we begin being actual. We begin having enjoyable. We begin dwelling extra authentically.

For Charles Park, “dwelling unfiltered means to attach with nature, associates, household and most significantly ourselves, and to take action in actual life, real-time, and never simply by our units.” 

He is aware of that actual experiences in stunning, pure locations just like the ocean assist us to reside with out the psychological (and visible) trappings of filters and with out feeling like we “ought to” be dwelling in any sure method. 

As PADI’s Inventive Director overseeing the #LiveUnfiltered visible marketing campaign, Park incorporates storytelling that showcases what an unfiltered life-style appears to be like like. The folks he showcases, PADI’s AmbassaDivers and the PADI neighborhood, have messy hair, sunkissed pores and skin and smiles on their faces. They’re diving and having fun with their lives somewhat than worrying about what they appear to be. They’re not excellent, however they positive are blissful. 

That is what it means to #LiveUnfiltered. 


Prioritizing What Makes You Happiest

Now, diving isn’t the one solution to reside unfiltered and blissful. Park mentioned, “You’ll be able to reside unfiltered on a stroll along with your canine, or a picnic within the park with somebody. It’s about reminding oneself to be within the second.”

However, do you have to need to strive it, diving is a good way to connect with these extra actual elements of you. “Diving is the final word freedom,” Park mentioned. “It offers me with unparalleled and unfiltered magnificence. It’s meditative, and it at all times leaves me so grateful to be dwelling.”

happy divers smiling at the surface

For Ashley Levy, Park’s marketing campaign co-manager and Sr. Supervisor at International Efficiency Advertising and marketing, dwelling unfiltered additionally means “dwelling your greatest life – with out compromise or reservation or having to offer into societal pressures of the way you ‘needs to be’ dwelling. It’s a motion of change, permitting us to disconnect from our personal actuality to do no matter makes us really feel blissful and fulfilled.”

For her, the purpose of the marketing campaign is to get extra folks to suppose introspectively about what actually makes them genuinely blissful, and to really feel like they’ve extra management of their lives. 


Different Advantages

There are a number of different advantages of diving that the marketing campaign will spotlight:

1) Nature Unfiltered

A young man in sunglasses cleans up plastic from a beach
By way of ocean conservation and diving, you will discover methods to go away an impression.

Diving is about a lot greater than incomes certifications and cool stuff underwater. Turning into licensed is only the start. For instance, diving can be about conservation and neighborhood. It offers you an avenue by which to go away a private legacy of impression for our ocean, our planet and people round you.

For instance, whether or not on World Ocean Day, as a PADI Torchbearer or AmbassaDiver or by working with the PADI AWARE Basis, there are numerous methods to dive for a objective and to create waves of change a lot larger than your self. 


2) Wellness Unfiltered

As a result of diving requires such presence, it additionally helps you take away your self from the each day chaos of life above the floor. Morlock describes it as tranquil and salubrious – health-giving.

Relaxed Scuba Diver

“Diving is among the few actions that enable us to completely disconnect from our topside world of labor, household, and so forth, and join with a brand new underwater world,” added Levy. “Our brains flip off to lots of the stresses and pressures we now have on the planet above. No telephones/computer systems, no alerts/alarms, no voices, little sound. It’s peaceable and stress-free.”

Like Levy described, when you hit the water, it’s nearly you, your breath and which method you need to go. On this method, diving can have a beautiful, constructive impression in your psychological well being and well-being. “Happiness is available in all types, however diving makes lots of people blissful and relaxed and we need to provide that to an increasing number of folks!” Levy added.


3) Connection Unfiltered

As a result of diving helps us disconnect from the hustle and bustle of “regular life,” it additionally creates house for us to reconnect with what actually issues. This may be serving to others and our oceans, assembly new associates and neighborhood or attending to know ourselves higher. With every dive, we get nearer to determining what brings us pleasure and doing extra of that. It sounds easy – and it’s – however the impression can change actually all the pieces.

AmbassaDiver Frank Mollel with dive associates.

My Unfiltered Life

For me personally, diving gave me entry not simply to a magical underwater world, however to a happier, extra aligned, extra genuine me – an unfiltered model of myself. Precisely 10 years in the past, I grew to become a PADI Open Water Diver. Within the decade and 350 dives since, I’ve discovered a lot that means and objective by my experiences diving. I stop an sad job as a lawyer, deciding as an alternative to save the oceans that had saved me. This introduced me to my beloved Florida Keys to strive coral restoration and scientific diving. Right here, I now discover myself in a profession I really like – as an ocean storyteller and explorer – surrounded by different ocean lovers who encourage me each day.

You’ll be able to learn all of this on my resume and LinkedIn. However, what you don’t see is how genuinely joyful and me I’ve turn into. Due to diving, I’m dwelling my most unconventional, most unimaginable, most unfiltered life – and having the time of my life doing it. 

Now, the query is, can we aid you begin dwelling unfiltered?


An enriched air nitrox diver jumping into the water from the back of a dive boat
Are you able to take a large stride into the remainder of your life?

Extra on the Advantages of Diving



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