Fairmont Toastmasters Club

[Kristen Laas]

Go Big or Go Home

For almost thirty years, my winters have revolved around skiing - night skiing, weekend skiing, taking the occasional day off from work or school to ski, taking ski lessons, teaching skiing, and taking family ski vacations throughout North America. As soon as I was old enough to drive, it was a rare week that I couldn’t be found on my local hill at least five times. For the last five of these years, winters have meant getting up early, skiing hard all day, going to work for ten hours, going out with friends, then getting up the next day and doing it all over again. To rack up one hundred ski days each season while living in Whistler was not unusual.

This past winter was the first winter since I was four years old that I haven’t skied. It’s hard to go from living and skiing the two biggest mountains in North America that are over eight thousand acres in size, that are more than two thousand metres high, that have more than two hundred runs, and that rank as one of the top ski destinations in the world, and return to my local hill that’s an overwhelming ninety metres high, with a grand total of twenty-three runs….including the nursery slope.

Not skiing this past winter has given me a lot of time to think about skiing, and what it means to me. Skiing isn’t just about slapping a couple of boards on to your feet and hurtling downhill as fast as you can. Skiing isn’t just about making pretty turns while trying desperately to remain upright. Skiing isn’t just about the après life, although that’s certainly a big part of it.

Skiing, to me, is a metaphor for life.

From the earliest lessons of learning how to make french fries to go fast and a pizza slice to go slow, to my current free-style mountain carve, from the thrill of leaving the green bunny slope for the first time to the exhilaration and fear of plunging down the notorious Saudan Couloir, a “nasty elevator shaft, funnel-shaped with a 48-degree pitch, a double-black diamond descent into the underworld”, from crashing into the emergency gate at the top of the kiddie rope tow, to crashing into the trees after missing a sharp ninety-degree turn while skiing at two times the speed of stupid, to being crashed into from behind and breaking four ribs…skiing has given me a lot of memories and taught me a lot of things.

What skiing has taught me the most about has been about life. It’s taught me about how to live life, how to appreciate life, and how to enjoy life.

In life, as in skiing, there are many ways to get where you’re going, and it’s up to you to decide how you want to get there. Do you want to take the slow, safe trail that looks easy and doesn’t look like it will present any challenges or obstacles? Do you want to take the trail that everyone else is going down, because, well, if everyone else is going down that trail then you should be going down that trail too? Do you want to want to take the same trail you’ve always taken, because you know what to expect on that trail, and because you know you can handle anything with confidence on the tried and known? Or, do you want to try the new trail that you’re not quite sure what it’s all about? Do you want to try the new road that you’ve never tried before, that you’re not sure you can handle, that will give you unexpected challenges and opportunities, and greater rewards at the end? How do you want to get where you’re going? Skiing doesn't require you to be doughty. Skiing teaches you to face your fear of the unknown, to swallow that fear, to close your eyes, and to jump in…especially if you’re not sure how it’s going to turn out in the end.

Skiing is about living in the moment….right here, right now, is the only thing that matters. When you’re on the mountain, carving through two feet of fresh powder, or ripping downhill like a speed demon, you have to be in the moment. You’re not thinking about what you’re going to cook for dinner, or whether you have enough time to pick up your dry-cleaning after work, or about the household chores that always seem to pile up. You’re thinking about this one turn, and about the turn after this one. You’re feeling the wind and the sun on your face, you’re breathing in the crisp mountain air, and you’re laughing as the powder billows around your knees. In this one moment, you know what it means to be alive. Too often, we go through our day thinking not of where we are at this moment, but of where we should be, thinking not of what we’re doing, but of what we should be doing, of what we have to do. We don’t spend enough time appreciating our surroundings and our lives at this exact moment in time….because we’re too busy thinking of where we should be in the future.

Skiing is all about passion and a love of life. What else but passion drives one to ski when the temperature is -70 degrees with the wind chill? What else but a love of life drives one to ski seven days a week, in all weather, in all conditions, for the simple joy of being up there? Passion in skiing and in life drives one to ask oneself, how could I have done that better? What could I have done differently? What did I learn? Passion drives us to say, let’s do it again, but better. A love of life drives us to say, I’m going to get out there, even if it doesn’t look good. I’m going to do the best I can. And then I’m going to do it again. Because I can. In skiing, if you’re not falling down, you’re not taking enough chances. If you can ski without falling, you’re doing something wrong. In life, if you don’t take any chances, if you don’t take any risks, and if you don’t make any mistakes, then you’re not truly living. Playing it safe and taking no risks may get you where you want to be, but how will you remember the journey?

Perhaps the biggest lesson skiing taught me was to go big or go home…..put everything you have into whatever it is you’re doing, or don’t bother showing up. Don’t ski like you don’t mean it, and don’t live life like you don’t mean it. Every run you ski is your one chance at that run, at that moment, so make it count. This life you’re living is the only shot you have, so make it count. Do it big, put your all into it, or don’t even bother.

Go big, or go home.

Simple words, yet sometimes so hard to follow.

Glen Plake, an extreme skier, wrote the following, which I believe applies not just to how you ski, but to how you live.

They say the only thing that stands between you and the perfect run is fear
Fear of failure
What you should really be afraid of is what you’ll miss if you don’t try
Sell the Buick, sell everything you own, but never, never sell out
No matter how many times you crash, get up
Point the tips downtown and let ‘em run
Life is vertical
And there is no feeling on the face of the earth
Like living on the fall line