Lesson #7

Lesson #7: No Worries on the Mountain, Man. 

So my family goes to Colorado almost every year for an annual ski trip. This year was the first time that we have gone with both mine and my sister's husbands. My sister's husband has been skiing/snowboarding a lot. For my husband, however, it was pretty much the first time (excluding a time that I took him to learn how to ski back in PA). Needless to say, it seemed like he was going to be a fish out of water. 

The first morning was a bit of a doozy, and not because my husband wasn't catching on to the skiing thing. He picked it up pretty well! However, his skis were all wrong, his boots didn't fit right, he was too hot in some places, too cold in others. So, after only a couple of runs he decided it was time to go back to the dreaded, overcrowded, super heated ski rental place. His morning wound up consisting of about 4 different trips back to the rental place, 4 different long lines to have to wait through, several hoards of people to have to push through...basically a nightmare for a guy who hates crowds and small spaces, as well as being overheated while waiting in full ski gear whilst inside a heated indoor space. 

His final trip there was a nightmare and the look on his face said it all. He had some kind of snafu with the locker (ended up not being able to change the money in order to pay it, or something to that effect). He approached the ski dude taking care of rentals to try to settle this final inconvenience. His eyes must have looked about to cry and he started explaining what was going on with the locker. Clearly he was frustrated and this whole experience was giving him a nervous breakdown. The ski dude looked as if the anxiety emanating off of my husband's entire being was totally crushing his mountain high. He cutoff my husband in mid sentence and put his hand up in a stop gesture.

"Dude, dude...no worries on the mountain, man," he said. And immediately gave him all the change he needed, probably more than he needed, in a move that spoke volumes as to the importance of keeping that worried state out of the happy mountain zone.

We have kind of a inside joke now when either of us begins to freak out about something. No worries on the mountain has become sort of a mantra to relaxing, keeping things in perspective, just realizing that this, too, shall pass. Our life has become that happy mountain and why shouldn't we protect it from all those petty, annoying, nagging worries that threaten to bring us down. No way, man! I'm staying on my happy mountain and aint nobody gonna bring me down!

With that in mind, I encourage you to take a look at your life and think about the worries that come in each day, knocking on your door, threatening to take your happiness away. They will come, inevitably, whether invited or not. So when they do (and they will) just tell them, "No thank you! You're not welcome! Didn't you see the sign? It says: No Worries on MY Mountain. Man. Peace out."

“If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it's not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.”  

- Dalai Lama