It took me 20 years, but at last, I did it – I finally did it. I finally hit the slopes. I finally shredded some powder.
I finally went snowboarding!
No more being made fun of for being surrounded by the greatest snow on earth but never having been to the resorts.
I actually believed I would go my whole life without going. I’m overjoyed to say that I was wrong!
And what an experience it was. Last night, I crammed into a jeep with my 3 amigos (Martin, Francisco, and Josh) and we drove to Powder Mountain. I did 7 runs between the dark hours of about 6 and 9. It was ridiculously cold, but I survived – the incredible soreness in my body today reminds me that I survived, but just barely apparently. I’ll tell you what, waking up at 6:30 this morning to teach mission prep after that late and exhausting night of snowboarding is arguably more impressive than the fact that I went at all!
It was a blast, an absolute blast. I was worried I would just go and “get it over with”, do a couple of miserable runs and call it a night, but after a little while I fell in love with it. The first run was a nightmare, but my second run I only fell about 10 times, and then my third was phenomenal with only 4 or 5 falls. I got a bit cocky after that, and on my fourth run I caught a lip and faceplanted hard. My bloody nose was evidence of my having been humbled. Runs five, six and seven ended quite well, and I can happily say I got a few basic maneuvers down by the end. Once it became very difficult to get up when I fell (out of total exhaustion) we decided to call it a day.
On the drive home, I thought about all of the life lessons one can derive from this experience and from snowboarding in general that I want to share with you.
(Yeah I know, out with the boys and I’m thinking about my blog – is that lame?)
In fact, there are 3 that stood out significantly to me.
BALANCE
This one is obvious. Without balance, you’ll look like I did on my first run – laying on my back in the snow for the 17th time in 5 minutes. But I soon figured out how to use my heels and toes to help. I spent most of my time riding down the mountain with the board horizontal, perpendicular to the slope, my face directly facing down the hill. I put pressure on my heels to slow down lifted to speed up. As one foot would slide forward and my board would go parallel and gain speed, I would try and use my heels to get back to a safe position. It sometimes worked, and sometimes got me into the snow.
But hey, I could go a significant distance with significant speed using this skill!
Balance with it all was key. It’s something I’ve always struggled with. I’m a horrid skateboarder and only a slightly better roller-skater.
Yet, I was quite an impressive dancer. How can I balance at that but not in anything else? Who knows.
I even struggled with balance in life at times. My senior year of high school was overwhelming. I played the drums in multiple groups, captained our Ultimate Frisbee team, enrolled in 4 AP classes, served as Seminary Council President, and tried to have a social life. It was tough at times. However, if my life sped out of control (like my pesky snowboard) my “heel pressure” to slow me up was daily prayer. It was a savior to me. Personal revelation on a nightly basis was crucial to my success and well-being.
They don’t lie when they say God should come first!
Heavenly Father would tell me what to focus more of myself on and, more importantly, what to let go of. That give and take at the right moments of my life not only kept my sanity but improved the quality of everything else I did.
God knows how we should balance our lives. Why not ask Him how?
COMMITMENT
The next crucial principle I learned but didn’t practice very well was commitment. The guys I went with acted as my instructors. Francisco kept trying to tell me that I had to jerk and even lift my back leg (right leg) around if I was gonna turn effectively. That took a lot of energy, and most of my energy was spent on getting up when I fell. Suffice it to say, I didn’t take his advice, and thus I had a very hard time changing direction.
Other than that, I like to think I put a lot of effort into my snowboarding that night. The fact that I enjoyed it is evidence of that. I’ve learned in life that in order to enjoy something to the fullest, we must be committed to it – indeed, you could say the two are proportional to one another. As our commitment to a hobby or activity increases, so too does our satisfaction and reward.
And that’s not just because you win or become the best.
Rather, it’s because you grow!
An important part of being human is growing. It’s in our divine nature to do so. When we sacrifice our all into something, we grow to become more than what we sacrificed. My soreness is evidence that I sacrificed my body and drained my energy trying to improve my snowboarding skill. Yeah, my skill is minimal compared to almost everyone else, but hey, I committed, so I’m satisfied.
I spoke about this one time in front of the entire student body at Layton High. I was in a competition, and the final 3 contenders gave a short speech. I spent 60 seconds talking
about my passion for drumming (I represented drumline in this schoolwide competition) and how we need passion for things in life for them to matter. It felt like a good speech! It resulted in me winning the competition and taking my shirt off in front of the school.
Long story.
Point is, without passion for what we do, what is the point? I organize calendars every day at work. It’s quite boring. But I’ve tried to memorize all of the calendars, their placements, dimensions, qualities, etc. and it has gotten to the point where I can lead any customer to any calendar in the entire store! I love that! A menial task has become a passion. It won’t lead anywhere in life necessarily, but it gives me joy and satisfaction in the moment.
And that’s reward enough for me.
GOOD FRIENDS
I have to put in my 2 cents about the value of good friends. I have so much gratitude for these 3 guys! They can all attest to my reluctance at the idea of going snowboarding. When they first mentioned it, I thought it was a joke, but then they started planning and I got a bit nervous. None of them thought I would go, but nevertheless they all tried to convince me. The fact that I went surprised us all, but in the end I’m incredibly grateful I went.
On my first run, all 3 of them took a slow tempo to stay with me as I kept falling. Each one gave me pointers and encouragement, even as I would hit the snow in frustration. Eventually, their words sank in and my body started making the right moves. When I finally had a streak of 60 seconds of riding without falling, their cheering fueled me even more. Their patience with me in the beginning did more for my riding than anything else.
I listened to a song by John Mayer that said something like “good friends won’t let you do something stupid”. I think this can go deeper. These guys knew I had never been snowboarding, partially out of a lack of interest, partially out of fear. They knew how fun it was. They knew that making excuses and letting fear win was stupid.
They wouldn’t let me do something stupid.
They didn’t let fear or frustration prevent me from getting to the slopes, or from continuing after the first run. They knew that just on the other side of this greatest fear and difficulty lied an equally powerful excitement and happiness. They knew I would grow from the experience – and grow I did.
Abraham Lincoln once said you become the 5 people you spend the most time with.
Spend time with 5 people who don’t let you do something stupid. And something stupid is letting fear prevent your growth. Find people who won’t let you do that stupid thing, then do the same for them.
Had it not been for them, I may have never gone snowboarding my entire life.
And how stupid would that be?
CONCLUSION
It may seem that balance and commitment don’t go together. How can we be fully committed to something yet have it balance with everything else in our lives? Of course, an obvious answer is to limit how many things you commit to. But another way is to give your all to whatever you are doing at the time, and then move. My 2 years as a missionary took all of my commitment. Now, as life moves on, my commitment moves on – not away from God, but it is split into different branches. That seems to be how balance and commitment blend together. It’s something all of us need to figure out for our specific lives and circumstances.
One thing I do know is the truth of this quote, from a book I read 4 years ago called The Alchemist:
“When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream.”
Passion is powerful. This combined with balance, good friends, and divine aid literally is the universe conspiring to help that dream come true.
The universe “conspired” to give me a great experience for my first time snowboarding.
If these principles work for something as simple as that, won’t they work for the major dreams in our lives?
Let’s try it out.
And these were and are my thoughts on the slopes.
Adam Simpson
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