No one gets hurt in the air

Truthfully, I got sidetracked earlier today and forgot to finish up my newsletter for today. I have been getting “sidetracked” more frequently since being back. I don’t mean sidetracked as in a way of saying procrastinating, though. More of an ADHD to try to work simultaneously on 7 projects at once because they are all too exciting to not be doing.

I’ve been driving fast and taking chances.

I recently finished a book called “Not Fade Away” which is about a man named Peter Barton. The book was written as Peter was dying of cancer. I later learned he briefly taught a graduate entrepreneurship class at the University of Denver, my alma mater, in the early 2000s. The Lacrosse stadium is named after him, but I didn’t put two and two together. He talks in great depth about his choices in life and the lasting impacts they made. A ski bum in Aspen, Colorado, doing triple backflips into pools to crowd please, living on the road, and stealing power from gas station coke machines at night, to working in Hugh Carey’s administration and playing the piano for Frank Sinatra on a drunken evening on out on the town, Peter Barton lived a life. He lived hard. But taken all too soon.

“It’s not the leap that’s dangerous, it’s the landing… As I’ve said, no one gets hurt in the air.”

Being a skier myself, this sentiment resonated heavily. It’s something I learned through practice. I broke my collarbone, separated my shoulder, knocked myself unconscious, and countless other stupid injuries all in the name of catching some sick air. I never thought about the landing. I just went off the jump, threw my trick, and hoped for the best. It’s safe to say I learned from my mistakes. I think about the landing now… at least in skiing. I took some gnarly wipeouts this last ski season, but I’d like to think they are more well-calculated than ever before.

If you think that there is some naivety to the statement, “No one gets hurt in the air,” you are totally right. But that is precisely the point. I wouldn’t advise giving that sentiment to a teenage boy but hearing it as a 23-year-old takes on a whole new perspective. Truthfully, I am not quite sure where I am going with all of this. It speaks to me and my current way of life.

“Kids learn in grade school that present actions have future consequences. Cause and effect. If A, then B. The “smart kids” are the ones who grasp that right away. The ones who dawdle in the present are thought of as dummies or hopeless daydreamers.”

We are taught from such a young age that we always must think ahead, to think about the future. In essence, to worry. My dad’s signature line before I do absolutely anything is “use good judgment.” I used to think of it as a punishment, or a way to keep me in line. It took me a while, but I learned that I just had to scope out the landing to make sure it was semi-safe. There is no doubt about it that I won’t say it to my kid when the time comes. It’s a good reminder. The difference is that it’s often an action to be done in the present. It’s taking a moment to scope out the landing before launching off the jump. It’s asking a few questions before jumping into something foreign. Maybe for a little while it was a deterrent from the stupidity I wanted to take part in, but now it’s a leading principle in my life. Peter argues that the price of worrying, worrying, and worrying, mixed with the safe calls we are taught to take so that our lives can pan out the way they should, comes at an immeasurable cost. I’ll continue to take risks as long as I can, and I’ll push my friends to do the same. And I’ll hear my dad’s voice muffled in my ear all the while, pushing me to scope out the landing before I make the jump.

See you next time,

Eli