Yesterday it was sunny, warm and beautiful flip-flop weather. Today, it is snowy, muddy, puffy-coat weather. Welcome to spring in the Colorado mountains.
Weather aside, I was thinking about change.
This morning I was watching a video by Gary Vaynerchuck. He was talking about change and how important it is to adapt to it. In fact, he said, adapting to change is more important than you think.
As a thought, it would seem ridiculous to us if we didn’t adapt our clothing to the weather. You can continue wearing flip flops, but here in Crested Butte, you may freeze your toes when the temperatures are in the negatives. You can wear your puffy jacket in the sun in the middle of the day in July, but you may lose a lot of water and become overheated. For most of us, this is a no-brainer.
Yet, we often dig our heels into the earth when it comes to change in our life. We become used to something and aren’t interested in doing it the new way. We are good at doing it the “old way” and so we may choose to ignore other possibilities.
I remember back to college years in Spokane. I was attending Gonzaga during the school year, had a sales job in the summer and in the winters, was working as a race coach for Silver Mountain. I can’t remember what skis I was on at that time, but I think it was a classic pair of K2’s. Back in the day (yes I just said that!) it was all about skinny long skis. The longer they were, the more badass you were.
This is prior to the full adoption of shaped skis by the ski industry. One Christmas I was gifted a new pair of shaped skis. They were beautiful, shiny and new. But I didn’t want anything to do with them. In my opinion, only people who didn’t know how to ski used shaped skis.
Well, I finally, slowly started using the new skis. The weight balance, initiation of your turns, it’s all a little different. You can’t drive your parabolic shaped skis in the same manner you would your previous long skinny skis. You have to change your stance, your weight, a lot of little changes. Over time I acquiesced. (That’s how it felt at the time, like I was giving in.)
So I adapted and I came to appreciate the new technology and worked on modifying and improving my skills on a different shaped ski. The long skinnies stayed in a corner silently watching as I moved on.
Then, one day, my new ski set-up went away. They ended up on a new adventure with some unknown new owner. I had Christmas camp with the kids and obviously needed skis. I pulled out my old pair, rode up the lift and on my first few turns, fell down. I was now trying to ski my old skis with my new habits for the new skis.
Here we are many, many years later and there have been more technology changes and new fancy things available in the ski industry. Some, in my opinion, are gimmicks and some are true advances in technology.
And here, many, many years later, I never went back. I have moved forward with the technology, learned the new skills and gave up my “good fight” to honor classic ski technology.
Sometimes when I have dinner with my parents, I will look at the wooden skis on their walls. They are the pair that his father skied on. I laugh as none of us would choose wooden skis, or even the old skinny skis, unless it was purely for a nostalgic moment.
So, the end point of this? Well, there will always be change in life. It is up to us if we choose to resist or lean into it.
~Heather
