Mount Rainier, view from Crystal Mountain Resort Summit.

The second day, yesterday, I kicked serious ass. I boarded all day and only biffed it boarding once, early on. The light bulb went on, something clicked, and like that little girl from Jurassic Park, I was all, “I know this!” as the muscle memory from years of skateboarding came back to me. I was proud of myself, because I rocked it.

Driving home from Crystal.

The lesson I learned was that a good attitude can get you past a steep learning curve, but you have to be willing to get outside your comfort zone, and take some hits. You can’t win if you don’t fight, and you can’t fly if you don’t jump. Starting is the scariest part.

After that, it’s all a unix system.

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.”

“There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded.”

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”

“Really great people make you feel that you, too, can become great.”

The world is beautiful.

Well, I’m here to tell you… not making a choice, is a choice.

The world keeps turning, despite your perceived inaction. I say perceived because by not moving forward, you are making a choice – instead of owning your own steps though, you’re just staying on whatever course you happen to already be on. In not wanting to make a decision, you are deciding to stay in your default state, whatever comfort zone you happen to be in.

If you get to a fork in the road, and there’s two paths, make a choice to move forward, boldly, down one. Trip and stumble along the way, but fight your way through, going for what you want. Make mistakes, but don’t sit too long at the fork wondering about the opportunity cost of one over the other – because there’s also an opportunity cost of just sitting there, frozen.

Life is going to be a battle, whether you’re sitting at the fork in the road or moving forward. But only in moving forward do we own our path. Don’t kid yourself and think you’re stalling between two choices – you may have already made the third choice, to let life happen to you instead of captaining your own destiny.

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.”
Henry David Thoreau

 

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TripIt is far and above my favourite way to track my travel, and Alaska has a great policy for refunding airfare price drops – I may never hesitate to buy a ticket again!