The Tao of Skiing…
I knew was this was the title of this conversation, but checked in with Google to figure out what “The Tao of…” actually meant.
It means “the way of…”, “the underlying natural order of the universe whose ultimate essence is ultimately difficult to circumscribe…”.
So, there you go…
The Tao of Skiing… my wife will appreciate this one 😉
I am “that” guy. You know…
“That” guy that wants to maximize the day. The moment we arrived on the mountain to ski with the family, or to the amusement park to spend the day with the kids… I WANT TO GET STARTED. I WANT TO MAXIMIZE THE DAY… I can’t help it, it’s in my genes.
I am also “That” guy at all-you-can-eat buffets which is a dangerous thing and why I stay away from them.
When we get to the mountain or to amusement park, getting started becomes a gravity so strong, I can’t see straight. If the kids need to go to the bathroom, making sure we have all the gear, making sure I close the door on the rental car, looking both ways before I cross the street…
NOTHING MATTERS!!!
LET’S GET ON THE FIRST SLOPE!
I don’t know exactly where that comes from, though I am afraid it is in my DNA both by nature and by nurture. I remember my father used to always ask for his cokes to come without ice, that way he got more coke ;-) This was a behavior started before the days of free refills. My mom used to ask for a second meal on plane rides, because they were free, and she knew they always had extras...
In the past years when I have been skiing with friends, it’s been great. We are up and on the first lift. We tend to stay ON the mountain to make sure we don’t miss a moment in traffic. We ski from the first lift at 8:30 am until the last lift at 4:00 pm. Even if we are sore, exhausted and nasceous from skiing so much… IT’S NOT OVER TILL IT’S OVER. It’s like there is some computer chip in my mind computing number of runs divided by dollars spent and pushing my behavior to maximize the VALUE that I get from that day.
That’s actually it… It’s about VALUE.
Somewhere in my brain… I have associated QUANTITY with VALUE… and so, in those days most apparently… trying to maximize QUANTITY of RIDES or RUNS… takes over my being.
QUANTITY, QUANTITY, QUANTITY… feels so wrong when I see it in writing, but its where it comes from…
Perhaps it’s because I incorrectly correlate QUANTITY with QUALITY…
Or because, and there is truth to this… THE MORE RUNS you take on a mountain, the more likely you are going to have a great, memorable one… .The more rides you take at an amusement park, the more likely you are going to have one that rocks your world…
Then there is the “EXPERIENCE IT ALL” side of me… I want to try EVERY ride. I want to try EVERY slope. I want to do all the hard ones. I want to say I did it. I want to KNOW I did it. I want to experience them all, because they are there to be experienced!
But who wrote that rule book? Who said I had to experience them all?
Especially, if by trying to experience them all, I make it less of an enjoyable experience for others?
Hmm…. Roll that one back Kemosabe…
It's not just about me. I need to remind myself of that often. I justify that reaching for more is the right example to set... but more and more, I am pretty sure I am wrong.
It’s a philosophy and an ambition in life… I want to experience it all… and it creates a pace that I don’t always enjoy…
MORE is NOT BETTER…
BUT, MORE IS MORE, and with MORE there is a greater possibility of better.
It’s the engineer in me. I believe in probability.
But, at what cost?
What is my objective?
Hmmm…. What is my objective? Is experiencing it all really my objective? NO, not really. Experiencing the best that I can is important, and not as important as connecting with those I love and care about.
Why am I going skiing?
Why did we take the kids to the amusement park?
So, here is where the Tao of Skiing actually starts…
I brought my son skiing last week for his birthday. We are out here in Utah, and my oldest son actually came out from California. So, I had an unforgettable opportunity to enjoy them both and treat them to a few days of skiing…
(you know where this is going 😉)
“So boys, what time are we getting up tomorrow? Mountain opens at 8:30, we could leave by 7:00 to make sure we are on that first lift?”
I had actually gone out the day before to rent my son’s skis to make sure we would not lose a precious moment the following morning.
“We’re kind of tired dad. Can we sleep in a bit tomorrow?”
My face maintained a smile (at least I think so), but inside my mind is yelling,
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“What time did you want to get up?” I ask, in my most adult like, non-anxious, non-judgemental voice…
“We don’t know. Can we just decide what time to leave after we’re up?”
Again…
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” is the rallying cry in my own mind.
I smile and say, “Let’s see how it goes”.
So, every day for the past 4 ski days, we started at various times. We got to the ski resort on the first day at 10:30. My hands were shaking. I smiled 😉 The lift ticket line was like 45 minutes long. One woman sat there and talked to the ticket attendant for 30 minutes! I wanted to yell, “It’s a ticket line not a dating game”, but I kept that inside.
We got on the mountain sometime between 11 and 11:30. I was a little lightheaded 😉
We had a wonderful day on the slopes, skied without taking a break. And, before the final chair closed at 4:00 pm, “we” had enough. It was a great day.
The second day, we started at close to noon. I decided to go to get a workout in the morning, and got some work done while the boys slept.
I did get them up at certain points to say, “if we don’t get up now, we won’t ski today” and they got up, all be it slowly.
To add insult to injury, my nephew and niece where also joining us for a few days. My nephew just stated skiing 2 days ago, so needless to say, he was on a different skill level. When we got on the mountain, I admit, I put him on a black on his second run.
I know…
I AM SORRY!
I am who I am…
He didn’t enjoy it. I did, to my credit, stay with him and help him up every time he fell.
WHAT?
He only fell like 15 times…
He’s 19, he can handle it 😉
Not one of my finer moments…
I wasn’t as patient with him as I was with my own boys, too many competing priorities in my own mind… now I am finally out on the mountain to ski with my boys, and I am teaching my nephew to ski…
Oh…
That’s right…
That was another one of the reasons why we are here…
We head home today. It is a beautiful morning, and it has been a fantastic trip.
I have skied a lot fewer runs than I would have normally skied on a trip of this nature… back when I had supreme power over my offspring.
I am older too.
Skiing 8 hours per day, isn’t necessarily what I want to or need to do… but there is some coding in my main processor that still expects it, demands it, desires it…
The reason we came out was to spend time together… To enjoy some exciting skiing together… To expose our family (cousin, niece and nephew) to this very different world of skiing.
It’s just not about me… not about only me.
Today, our last day, we didn’t ski half a day (even though I booked our flights to get that last bit of skiing in…).
My son wanted to rest instead, and then go grab a nice unhurried lunch together.
Sounds nice.
I need to reprogram my brain.
I thought about going out and skiing by myself, and it felt so pointless.
I am not here to ski…
I am here to share time with my son. Skiing on my own seemed so pointless.
I am enjoying this more relaxed pace of skiing… living?
There is so much going on in life that getting just a little time here and there to relax is precious.
I tend to push through those few possible moments of rest every day to try to squeeze in MORE life.
I realize MORE life is not what its about.
If I pause and try to think about WHY I live… WHY I choose to do what I do… it gets easier to slow down.
But, it’s 50 years of bad habits that I am trying to break.
And, there is nothing wrong with stuffing your life with activities and maximizing every moment…
It’s one way to do it…
But, it’s really not aligned with the life I want to life.
Deep sigh…
I WANT TO LIVE EVERY MOMENT… to the fullest…
I think…
But, perhaps more than that, I want to live every moment JOYFULLY…
And, to live it JOYFULLY with those I share it with, I need to mind their pace, their interests, their own ambitious and styles into my own moments…
I don’t want to be at odds with my own desires…
I don’t want to be at odds with anyone…
Life is complex and there are so many competing priorities… I should be smarter about creating my own artificial competitions with my own time.
Life can be simpler…
And, it is, if I pause, and ask myself…
What really matters?
Why am I here?
For my sons… on this trip… and to enjoy myself…
And, I did both sincerely and thoroughly…
Few moments are perfect, if we define perfection with too many constraints…
No moments are perfect, if we impose our own constraints on others who don’t share them.
This trip had so many wonderful, “perfect” moments…
I learned a lot…
I don’t want my life to be the pursuit of quantity in any way…
I don’t want my life to be the pursuit of anything…
I want my life to be the deliberate experience of shared joy…
The acceptance of different people and personalities and approaches…
I want my life to be exactly what it is…
And, work as hard on allowing it to be what is, as I used to work on trying to make it more.
Allowing it to be exactly what it is… will actually unleash it to be the most it can be.
I see that now…
Trying to make it more than it is, is “wishing”… it’s disharmony.
Embracing what it is and seeing the wonderful joy in it… is my want… it’s harmony.
I know it’s easier said than done…
I will try harder not to be on the first lift every day.
I will try harder not to maximize the number of runs I get on the slopes every day.
I will linger in conversations with my boys where they present themselves.
I will occasionally stop
as I am skiing down the side of life,
and look up…
And, take in the sky and the sun and the snow and the trees… and the beauty...
I will see my son up on the mountain behind me.
And, I will breathe deeply… and smile…
I will pause in gratitude for the gift of this moment...
After all,
We don’t need to figure out if we are doing another run…
Until
AFTER
we get down this hill…
In harmony,
Nestor