“A Lesson from Life”

Sydney M. Williams

Thought of the Day

“A Lesson from Life”

January 12, 2012

“Life is what you make it. Always has been, always will be.”

                                                                                                               Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)

There are two types of situations that confront us: the first are those where we help to, or actually determine outcomes, and second are those over which we have no control. Most of our time is spent weighing options where we determine choices – food, clothing, shelter, education, friends, and political options. On the other hand, there are events over which we have little or no control, such as the economy, the stock market and the weather. Vail, with its below normal snowfall and from which I just returned, was an example of the latter.

While it seems that are our individual vote rarely counts, it is important to remember that only if one does vote does one have a say. The political options we face are stark in their contrast. One path leads to greater government involvement and control, lessening our economic freedom, as was made clear in the just published Heritage Foundation’s 2012 Index of Economic Freedom and highlighted by Edwin Feulner, the president of the Heritage Foundation, in today’s Wall Street Journal. The risks to our economy from this course are multifold. First, paying for the entitlements the Obama administration wants to offer will divert income from more productive purposes, ergo the Fed keeping interest rates abnormally low. Second, the more dependent people become on a benevolent government the less independent they become as individuals. And, third, people should never forget the message embedded in the title of Friedrich Hayek’s immortal classic, The Road to Serfdom. Individual liberty implies personal responsibility, which may be painful at times, but nevertheless is a necessary component of freedom.

Mr. Romney, assuming he becomes the republican nominee, offers a vision less grandiose, but more realistic and more in keeping with our historical legacies. He views government, as President Kennedy stated in his Inaugural, not as a vehicle for providing benefits, but as a means to protect us from those who would do us harm, as well as to ensure our individual rights. Government should provide equality of opportunity, not equality of outcomes.

On the other hand, there are lessons to be learned from experiencing events over which we have no control, like the weather, as I mentioned above, this past week in Vail. A year ago the mountain experienced its best conditions, perhaps ever – with 511 inches (42.6 feet) having fallen between mid November and April 23rd. In contrast, 95 inches (less than 8 feet) have fallen so far this year. Last year, all of the back bowls and Blue Sky Basin were open, as was one of my favorites Blue Ox, on the front, and we skied on fresh powder almost daily. This year we were limited to the front of the mountain, with the steeper trails closed.

However, we adapted. The challenges we faced were ones of watching out for loose pebbles on trails that became icy, rather than ones of sweeping down a back bowl with powder reaching one’s waist. The conditions were reminiscent of those I knew growing up in New Hampshire, packed powder with patches of ice. We swapped the excitement of racing through the trees on Blue Sky Basin for cruising Born Free. Skiing is an individual sport, but it is also communal, in the sense of a shared experience. Back in the lift line we swapped stories of near misses; we laughed at old and dumb jokes, as a way of releasing tension. It is difficult to describe the sense of traveling downhill on a pair of narrow boards at twenty-five or thirty miles an hour, with constantly changing conditions underfoot, but it is exciting and tense, no matter the trail or conditions.

There is much in our lives that we can affect and we should take care to do so, but there are instances and events beyond our control. Mrs. Roosevelt was correct in noting that life is what you make of it. The conditions in Vail were what they were. There was nothing we could do, and complaining wouldn’t help. So we skied hard, ate good food and drank better wines. We had a good time.