When I was around 19 or so, I had a job working for a ski resort on Mt. Baker in Washington State. It was a really fun time for me. The owners of the ski resort actually provided free housing for all of its employee’s and they also gave each of their employee’s free season passes for the ski resort. So I worked in the ski shop where we would sell ski equipment and rent out ski’s and snowboards. Everyday each employee would get a three hour break so that we could all get a chance to hit the slopes. Mt. Baker is kind of a legendary mountain, a lot of people don’t know this but it’s where snowboarding got its start, it was one of the only mountains that allowed snowboarding at first so it attracted hardcore snowboarders from all over the world. Baker has the most intense terrain and extreme conditions of any other mountain in the country, which was another reason that it attracted hardcore boarders. There was a saying there that if you could snowboard at baker, you could snowboard anywhere. People up there actually would make fun of the people who boarded in Utah and Colorado calling them pansy’s because the conditions at those places are so perfect. So baker was and is like the wild west of snowboarding. While working there I actually got to see snowboarding legends everyday like Craig Kelly, Mike Ranquet, Commins, Tex…

So, yes, that time was most definitely the best time of my life. I lived in a town called Glacier which was the nearest town to the resort and it was an icy windey 30 minute ride everyday to work. After driving on that road everyday, I started to stop trying to drive careful, along with a lot of other people who drove on that rode everyday. You were supposed to only go about 30 mph max but most of us would go about 60 mph. So the worst thing that could happen to a lot of the locals was to get behind someone who was driving really slow because it was impossible to pass people because the roads were just too busy and the chances of running into someone head on were just too high so if you got stuck behind someone going slow, you were just stuck and there was nothing that you could do about it. So, I found myself in that situation one day and I just happened to have one of my laid back hippy friends in the car with me. I was freaking out! Yelling at person in front of me, honking my horn and basically just throwing a hissy fit. So I look over at my hippy friend and he is just laughing at me and then he said, “duuuuude, you just need to chill out. You want to know what I do when I get stuck behind someone who is going slow? I kick it into second gear, back way off of the person and enjoy the ride. It gives me a chance to actually look around at how beautiful it is up here.” So, I took his advice and he was right! I backed way off of the slow guy in front of me and relaxed and looked around me and I saw that I was surrounded by beauty, beauty that I had been missing out on because I was in such a hurry.

That advice from my hippy friend changed my life and I have used it many times since then. I have found myself in frustrating situations since then where I was just stuck with no options, no where to run, no way out, and instead of cursing my situation and jumping up and down and throwing a fit, I just switch it into second gear and back way off. I now see those situations not as a curse but as an opportunity to take in the scenery, to smell the roses, to play with my children and get to know them better, to walk out of my front door and take a look at those beautiful mountains that are shooting up towards the sky, so as to salute the heavens, to look at my many, many blessings and thank my Father in Heaven for giving them to me so abundantly.

I haven’t seen or heard from that hippy guy that gave me that advice. I wish that I could tell him thank you for getting me through a lot of really, really tough times in my life. Thanks Aaron!