Every once in a great while I see a bumper sticker that says something to the effect of "don't let others discourage your dreams, they've already given up on theirs." The problem is that when we have dreams, it is very easy for others to discourage them because we have no proof that things will work out. We are following a hunch and trusting our intuition. People who try to advise us on how to live our lives are often people who know us well (too well in all the wrong ways) and they will find reasons why our intuition is not to be trusted. They will do anything to create doubt in our minds unless we can convince them to get off our case. In other words, they're looking for a sign.
The world is full of people who look for a sign and never take a leap of faith. People always want assurances that things will work out rather than go out on a limb. When I decided to go out west to be a ski bum for however long I felt was appropriate, I was met with a great deal of resistance. Even the people who supported the idea just did not seem to get it.
One older fellow told me about a friend he knew who had property in Beaver Creek, Colorado. He asked me if I was going there. I was still considering many options, and not just in Colorado either, so I did not have a definitive answer. Then he got all demanding and said "Well, you're either going there or you're not." I said that I haven't decided because there were A LOT of ski areas I was considering. I was not going to do the default thing and just follow a bunch of my former schoolmates down the Vail bandwagon, or some other similarly sterile option, for lack of considering other places a little more off the beaten path. Following one's former schoolmates is the very antithesis of getting away from the world.
My former boss from before I moved out west was asking me where I was thinking of going. I was considering places in western Canada and maybe Colorado. He said that he thought Colorado was a good idea (which to me sounded like a cliche but he somehow thought he was telling me something profound). Then he mentioned that he knew some people in Breckenridge and asked me if I had heard of it (who hasn't?). He also asked if I had ever been to any of these places, and I had not (I see an attempt to discredit me).
I may not have visited these places before but I knew a fair amount
based upon word-of-mouth, the internet, ski maps, road maps, and a bit
of common sense. Canada was not going to work out as far as finding work there as an American. In Colorado, I had pretty quickly narrowed it down to more remote places in close proximity to higher mountains - Aspen, Crested Butte, and Telluride. It all came down to how the housing situation would look. Some people in Telluride had a place for me so Telluride it was going to be. It was my first choice anyway.
Well, the aforementioned ex-boss did not seem pleased about that when I was about to depart. He acted like we had an agreement that he would fix me up with a job in Breckenridge. There was no such agreement. Then he reiterated the question about whether I had been to these places before. Apparently, he interpreted my earlier lack of a final decision to a deficiency of knowledge rather than an abundance of knowledge. Then he asked me if I had a job set up out there. Of course I didn't. All I had was a verbal agreement about reasonably-priced housing. If that didn't work out upon my arrival, I would look at some of the other apartment complexes. At that point he got this condescending look of disgust on his face. Even though he supported my idea of going out west, he wanted me to choose a place just by default rather than thinking for myself. He wanted me to have a safe and prudent pre-arrangement rather than going on a leap of faith. As you can see, there are many good reasons why I was the one going out to live the ski bum life and he wasn't.
Now if that's the reception I got from people who supported the general idea of being a ski bum, imagine how people who didn't support the idea must have responded. One dominant theme was that it was not going to further my professional career. It was going to be either restaurant, retail, hotel, or other form of customer service, and they were absolutely right about that. So they clearly missed the point of my going there.
Even people who do go out to live a ski bum life sometimes do it half-heartedly. Obviously you get the big group of friends who all go to the same ski area together to live and hang out there. Lame. One of them works at the local hospital there and then after a few years, works a similar job at a hospital at their hometown. Rather than going out on a limb, this person plays it safe all along. Another one first lives with that group of friends and then just works weekends there once they get a real job in the Denver area. Sure, this person may be living more of a mountain life than I these days but they never lived a true ski bum life. They played it safe all along. Somehow my other former schoolmates seem not to understand this and insist on referring to this person as a ski bum.
And then there is the person who does go out on their own but not until they have already worked a career-oriented job in Boston for a few years. This person then spends a ski season as a lift maintenance worker at a ski area in the Sierra Nevada and then immediately gets a job in the Bay Area at the same company they worked for in Boston, eventually making their way back to Boston. They basically had that job all along and did nothing more than take a brief sabbatical. Sure their resume might look more professional and appropriate than mine but they never took a leap of faith. They insisted on having assurances and getting a sign that things would work out. Rather than going out on a limb and living their dreams, they played it safe.
The world is full of people who play it safe. They conform to the expectations of the establishment. As a result, they never live their dreams. And then they try to discourage you from living yours. Don't let them do that. Your life is yours to live. You don't need a sign, you just need to believe.
John 4: 43-54
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