Just four days ago, I came up with the idea of a metaphorical, empty basket that I would fill-up each day with worthwhile, positive deeds, in order to use my dwindling, but precious time, the very best I can and marvel at the end of day when the treasure trove it contains reveals itself.
This is what I hope to accomplish. I find it easy to remember, visualize and also to be a wonderful guide to doing good. It’s a tangible guide that makes me think twice before putting crap inside this magic container, at least that’s what I'm looking for.
This is also something that dovetails perfectly with my “DSD” (Daily Self Debriefing) technique that I have begun at the end of 2020 and kept going, with surprisingly good results until now.
So what I plan to do is build it into another positive daily habit. Let’s hope this one sticks too!
Many teaching jobs are not learned in a school setting, but the process begins when the teacher is facing the students. At first it can be very awkward, difficult and horrible, but eventually one finds their groove and a teaching routine begins to take shape.
I’m not saying it’s necessarily a great one, but through repetition, feedback and measurements, as crude and ineffective as it may be, a teaching style emerge. Then, depending on the degree of passion for the subject taught, huge differences in quality can develop.
Obviously, the teacher must realize that he or she has to step into their student shoes, both physically and mentally. That dimension will vary vastly with individuals and their capacity for empathy as well as the depth and diversity of their personal experience.
This, at the end of a teacher’s formative process will unavoidably lead to huge differences in outcome. Then there’s the routine phase, where teaching quality may get enhanced (through “aha moments”, student or supervisory feedback) or deteriorate as time goes on (laziness, lack of motivation and passion for the work).
This obviously begs for frequent assessment and evaluations that are both time consuming as well as costly and rarely happen in ideal conditions if at all. In the end, the result is a crap-shoot, with a select few outstanding teachers, many fair to mediocre and about the same many that are unhelpful or terrible.
On August 16, 2022, Bernard “Dadou” Mayer, the other Taos ski legend, passed away at age 82. He was preceded in his death by his other brother Jean aged 85, on October 16, 2020. Both were iconic characters at Taos Ski Valley, known as the New Mexico ski resort’s legendary instructors and innkeepers.
As I was searching about them, I stumbled upon a couple of videos featuring the brothers and highlighting their teaching technique. This is when I realized that what we say as we teach skiing isn’t always as clear as it should be and, worse, can’t often be understood by those who are taught how to ski. Teaching skiing isn’t like sharing a simple kitchen recipe.
It’s mostly intangible and it deals with intensity, speed, pressure and feelings that often are uncommon, very difficult to precisely translate into words, and even more to be understood by the recipient. If the teacher doesn’t put him or herself inside their students ski boots, and won’t experiment with analogies, metaphors or other forms of simple, easy-to-relate examples, the instruction simply won’t go through.
The big challenge is that ski teaching technique is written and transmitted in cryptic, technical jargon that sounds often meaningless to the instructor and even more so to the student.
At the same time, the person learning how to ski has to deal with fear, a sensation of total lack of control and of finding themselves in a harsh, unfriendly environment, where it’s cold, other skiers are zooming from all directions, sometime looking as they will collide into them, while they’re prisoner of clumsy, hard to maneuver and heavy gear.
I would also suggest that ski instructors get their entire “spiel” or curriculum video-recorded, then sit down with potential students, communication experts and highly experienced instructors that can differentiate poor communication from excellent and develop a communication protocol from there that’s comfortable for the teacher to use.
What’s your take on using words that work for skiing?
Recently, my French buddies from my hometown that are my age got together for a good lunch near a picturesque alpine lake and seemingly had a fabulous time. I got to see the pictures and wish I was there with them to celebrate!
Sure, most of them don’t like exactly the same way they did when we were in our twenties, but they’re still there enjoying their silver years and capable of having fun together. This brings me to the subject of being able to enjoy life to its fullest no matter how far along we are, even as we get dangerously closer to the precipice that will unavoidably “drop” us to the “other side”.
I think about an empty basket that wait for me, empty at the dawn of each, waiting to be filled. If it has to filled, I might as well put good things, well very, very good things inside it, right? So that become my daily plan, to find good things to place delicately inside my basket, so when the day come to an end I can marvel at its content and let people who are near me share in my amazement.
I find that approach super simple, always changing, forcing me to think more creatively and so rewarding that I really believe I’ve locked into something really good!
Yesterday marked our 37th year in Park City. Since I’m (still) 74 now, I have spend half of my lifetime in this town, which in spite of its explosive growth, is a spot that I continue to enjoy and yes, love!
Where do I go from there? Well if a monster like Trump isn’t re-elected as I hope he won’t, and stand very little chance to return in absolute power, I have no intent to leave the place.
Instead, I pledge to sparing no effort in making this place better everyday each time the opportunity presents itself for the most minute improvement.
I’ve learned how to be more patient and to how to respond better to needs that must be fulfilled in a continuous effort keep the universe beating at the right pace and headed towards the right direction.
It feels so good to live in Park City and to be part of the fabric of this complex, imperfect, but so fascinating community!
I didn’t vote for our current Park City mayor. I didn’t fully understand her platform and program, so I stayed with the known entity our previous mayor represented and didn’t want to take a chance.
Still, she won the popular vote and I had to accept her as our new leader. As part of her promise to reach out to her constituents, our new mayor recently invited Park City residents and business owners to join her for one-on-one conversations to share thoughts, community concerns, or just to catch up for 20 minutes.
I didn’t want to let that opportunity go by without giving her a piece of my mind and on Wednesday, we met. Before that, her assistant had asked what subject I wished to discuss, and I said I wanted to focus on transit and transportation issues around town.
She didn’t know who I was as evidently had not been prepared as to who she’d meet, which would have been a cool idea. So, I proceeded to introduce myself and said that I wanted to talk about traffic issues, but at the macro level, since at 5 pm later that day, a Public Open House was scheduled about the upcoming winter Park City Transit service, and I said I would attend it.
Surprisingly, our Mayor didn’t know about that event, which was another surprise to me. I then embarked to share my vision of boring a tunnel trough the Wasatch mountains, trying to use a potential second Olympics and a chance for Elon Musk to showcase his boring company.
When I was done, I was comforted in my vote from last November, and had no illusion about my ability to inspiring our mayor!
I’m not talking here about being told that I’ve won $2 million at the lottery, but instead about all the bad surprises that fall on us at the very last minute, when we expect them the least, and are generally an unpleasant, bad surprise.
I generally don’t take these events as well as I should and based on that disheartening reality, I’ve decided to do something about it. First, I need to remember that I must learn to accept a bad reality. It’s part of life and is unavoidable.
I must also remember that change is the fabric of life. It’s in these moment that my positive attitude becomes a rocket booster. Sometime one bad thing could be a blessing in disguise and trigger some happy consequences.
It’s also a good lesson for learning to systematically always making an alternate plan, in case the main one fails. I must also control my emotions, wait long enough before blurting out and I must take time to examine what happened and put it into perspective.
That’s the moment to ask myself if the bad outcome is irreversible or if can be fixed and if so, how, then think constructively where I’m going from there. I also need to be less rigid in my life and make room for changes no matter how small they are so they becomes a lifelong habit.
I should also always focus on the present moment, instead of thinking about what I’ve lost, about the past, or dwelling on how bad the situation is, even if that require more emotional detachment than I’m capable of.
All this and my daily meditation should help me clear the bump that looked like a mountain and panicked me. If someone can do it, I should!
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