Everywhere you turn these days – in real life or online – people seem to be at odds. There are few places where you can let your truth-flag fly without being challenged about something you hold dear. Constantly striking a defensive position can be exhausting and down-right destructive on your psyche. If you skydive, you know that skydiving dropzones provide a glorious respite from our complicated world – if you don’t and have been yearning for a place where differences are put aside, perhaps you oughta get yourself under canopy, stat!

The skydiving community is one that prides itself on being welcoming. Skydivers just want to skydive and share the power and fulfillment that comes from the skydiving experience with everyone. Skydivers aren’t interested in economics, religion, race, orientation, politics … that’s the stuff ground-dwellers obsess over. At skydiving dropzones, people are people. Period, the end. Refreshing, right? Here’s the long and short of it:

SKYDIVERS DON’T CARE WHAT’S IN YOUR WALLET

Part of the 1% or a member of the 99%? Skydivers don’t care. Sure, some of us have the luxury of having top-brand gear and shiny-new everything as soon as it hits the market, and there are others of us who jump a rig they’ve been flying for years in a jumpsuit they care after like a childhood stuffed animal. Gravity affects us all in the same dag-on way.

SKYDIVERS DON’T CARE WHO – OR IF – YOU WORSHIP

As individuals, we value different books. As skydivers, we hold the same book sacred: the logbook. The sky is our shared house of worship and our beliefs are totally in line. We are commanded to go up and we are all called to come down, and enlightenment is attainable for all.

SKYDIVERS DON’T CARE ABOUT THE COLOR OF YOUR SKIN

It doesn’t matter the terrain, it doesn’t matter on the plane;

it doesn’t matter in the air, it doesn’t matter when you flare;

it doesn’t matter from the clouds, it doesn’t matter to the crowd;
it doesn’t matter in free all … it simply doesn’t matter at all.

SKYDIVERS DON’T CARE WHO FLOATS YOUR BOAT

Male, female, living life with a new pronoun… we all put our jumpsuits on one leg at a time, and we don’t care who is waiting for you when you take it off. (But they’re welcome on the dropzone too.)

SKYDIVERS DON’T CARE WHO YOU VOTED FOR

Red? Blue? The only colors we care about are the ones on your chute as we cheer you on from the ground. Governed by the Federal Aviation Administration, skydivers are on the same team and the only aisle they care about is the one on the plane.

SKYDIVERS DO CARE how you feel, and cheesy as it sounds, the most important thing every skydiver wants you to pack for the dropzone is your smile. They want everyone to be empowered to have it in their pocket on the way to altitude and for everyone to bust it out on the journey down. They want to see you wear it big, to wear it proud, and most importantly, they want everyone to wear it together.