Much of our waking life is spent making choices. Sometimes we cruise through days, weeks, even months without thinking much about where we are going. Other times these thoughts consume us. Perhaps we rush so much we need to step back and make these kinds of assessments more often.

The heavy snow had snapped a tree somewhere and dropped a power line. It was dark and our supply of flashlight batteries was dwindling fast thanks to the strobe lighting being provided by our youngest son. On top of that, I was being massacred by my 8-year-old in a game of candlelight rummy. When the phone call came, it was Greg, a colleague who is part kid, part grown-up.

“Let’s get up tomorrow morning and hike up to Hemphill Bald and ski down.”

“I can’t, I’ve got too much work to do.”

“Aw, come on. We’ll be back early.”

And so we did. The wind howled and our lungs heaved as we trekked through 15 inches of snow for about 45 minutes, skied down in about five minutes, looked briefly back to admire our tracks and then got into our cars and headed to work. We were at the office before 9, smirking inside about how we had cheated the often hum-drum world of work.

This East Coast style backcountry ski excursion occurred about a week after I had come back to Western North Carolina from a 5-day trip to visit a close childhood friend who lives in Utah. Kevin, his roommate and many of their friends have chosen a path quite different from that most of us lead. The trip consisted mostly of skiing, playing music, partying and deep conversation. Our talk - serious and in jest - seldom strayed far from thoughts of how to mix work and play.

These guys, like many who live in Rocky Mountain resort towns, are professionals at playing - skiing, hiking, biking, attending music shows, concerts, movies, parties. Though they’re 40, they’ve stayed away from raising families and getting caught up in all-consuming careers.

Kevin has always kept a healthy perspective on mixing fun and work. He is a small contractor, taking on jobs that allow him to hire subcontractors instead of hiring his own guys. When the fresh powder comes barreling down the Wasatch Mountain Range -which can occur anytime from October to April - no one expects to see him at work. They know he’ll be chest deep somewhere, searching for untracked snow either in the backcountry or at one of the resorts. Many times he has described that kind of skiing as a near-holy experience for him.

His roommate takes the fun even more seriously. He works just a few months a year, spending the rest of his time traveling in Mexico or points farther south. Somewhere along the way he amassed a pile of chips, and he carefully guards and nurses his money because it allows him to forego the kind of work life most of us lead.

I don’t know the roommate well, but I do know Kevin, and it would be mistake to call him lazy. He is a hard worker raised in a traditional Southern home where doing one’s share of the chores and respecting the virtues of hard labor were preached daily. He has established a reputation as an honest, dependable contractor who does quality work. It’s just that when the snow flies, he heeds a higher calling.

He chose not to let what our culture defines as success - making money - rule his life. To him, success is skiing, biking, hiking and staying unstressed. He’s 41 and I would daresay he would might have a rough time putting his hands on a few thousand dollars. Retirement isn’t in the vocabulary, and maybe that’s because he has never sacrificed enough to a career that he needs or deserves a few years of late-in-life leisure. He has been doing exactly what he wants his entire life.

There are many others, however, who believe work is the greatest accomplishment. They can be consumed trying to do their job better than anyone else; faster than anyone else; more efficiently than anyone else. I’ve often heard wise elders speak about taking great satisfaction in one’s work, about how gratifying their career was to them. The worker is searching for the same need for fulfillment, only in a different way.

The choices aren’t just about work and play. Family is a key element, and many of my wildest friends have become homebodies after finding love and having children. It’s a lot easier to stay home when it generates the warmth that only comes from close family relationships. That’s one of the easiest choices to make, and I can attest to the uplifting power of a good family life. Nothing in my world is more fulfilling.

This generation is probably among the first to confront this problem in such a head-on fashion. Our prosperity has allowed larger and larger amounts of leisure time. Making a mere living is not that hard anymore, so we have time to play more or work more or do whatever. We are fortunate that we are able to make these kinds of choices, that so few of us must chain ourselves to a life of backbreaking labor merely to survive. It also means that, more so than in the past, we are the choices we make.

(Scott McLeod can be reached at info@smokymountainnews.com)

 

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