Lessons from Steamboat

Recently, I had the chance to go out to Colorado for a work conference. I got to fly out on the corporate jet, stay in a fancy resort hotel, and eat at the nicest restaurants in town. I was living like the one-percent, baby! And, it was fun. But, on the second day of the conference, they took a group of us out to go snowmobiling as a team building activity. Our driver and guide was quite the character. He used words like “dude” and “gnarly” as a regular part of his conversation. He had recently finished college and is now living in the loft of a barn outside of Steamboat Springs with nothing but a fireplace to keep him warm. He told us stories of how the barn cats sometimes got into his loft and crawled all over him and his stuff while he slept. He spends his days driving tourists up and down the mountain and guiding snowmobile tours. His “office” is a wooden shack in the middle of the woods with a couple of porta-potties outside (yes, people – unheated porta-potties in the middle of the frozen Colorado wilderness – We decided to just “hold it” until we got back down the mountain, but I digress). And, he is blissfully happy because, in spite of his humble circumstances, he is living a stress-free life and doing what he loves to do. And, I have to admit that I was just a little bit jealous of this guy.


I know that it sounds crazy, but there is something deep inside of me that craves a simpler life. There is a part of me that wants to just sell everything and put away all of the trappings of success and settle into a cozy little log cabin in the mountains where I could put off the burden of responsibility and spend my days just enjoying my family and doing the things that I love.

The contrast between “gnarly dude” and my business colleagues at that conference was a pretty vivid reminder that money and success can’t buy happiness. I know that’s an overused phrase, but it’s so true. It’s so easy to fall into the mindset of thinking “if I just had this or that or if I could just get that next promotion, then I’d be satisfied – I’d be happy.” But, that’s not the case. There’s always something else out there that will be calling your name.

I don’t have a deep philosophical conclusion for this post – no great wisdom or insight to be shared. I wish that I did. I just know that there is a longing inside of me for simplicity and focus and quiet moments of reflection and the joy of doing the things that I was called and created to do. Do any of you feel the same way?