We searched for a house to buy.  We didn’t want much, just a place to call home.  When we spelled out what we wanted to the realtor our main concern was to have some land.  We wanted at least an acre and we wanted to be in the trees.  We didn’t want to live in town next to a bunch of other people.  We wanted our own space.  After looking at a number of homes located throughout the area, we narrowed the field down by deciding we didn’t want a mobile home and we wanted a road and a driveway that wouldn’t be too difficult in the snow.

We purchased a hexagon shaped home located about 35 minutes from Durango on one wooded acre.  The home was built in 1978 and had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a large walkout basement.  It also had wood paneling, an avocado green kitchen sink, and carpet in the bathrooms and kitchen.  It was everything we needed and more. It was reasonably priced and the payment would fit comfortably within our new two income budget.  Ironically, the banker had approved us for more than we wanted to spend.  He even offered to loan us money to buy the empty lot next door since we didn’t spend enough on the house. We chose to be responsible and keep our payments low.

The home we chose had previously been a vacation home for an elderly couple from Texas.  They didn’t bother coming up for the closing and left all of the furniture.  The home was fully furnished with beds, couches, a TV, pots and pans, and even cleaning supplies.  We basically showed up with our clothes and settled in and made it our own.

This home was everything we had ever wanted or needed.  We spent evenings sitting on the deck enjoying a view of the valley below, took the dogs for walks right out of the backyard and into the forest, and assembled groups of friends for small parties where everyone had a great time.   We had it all.

Then things slowly started to change.  I was working for a small local bank at an entry level position.  I was kicking butt and earning higher commission levels than anyone else.  I had dollar signs in my eyes and I was making more and more every month.  Suddenly, I wasn’t happy with the avocado green kitchen sink.  I felt like I deserved better.

Soon I was putting the skills I had learned back when I lived out of my truck.  I started remodeling my perfect little home.  I completely remodled the kitchen. I installed a slate tile floor, new cabinets, granite countertops, stainless steel sink, added an island, stainless steel refrigerator, and dishwasher.  Then I completely remodeled a downstairs bathroom, put new flooring in the upstairs bathroom, added a new wood stove with new slate tiles on the wall behind it.  I even changed the railings on the deck and added a new staircase to the deck.  But it wasn’t enough.

I wanted more. Not because I needed it, but I felt like I could afford it. Maybe I just wanted what the Jones’ had. Whatever it was that caused my sudden change out heart, It took away my simple view on life. I forgot who I was and what I believed in. Somehow the voice inside me said “More, More, More”.

I now have so much more… But I am not as happy as I was the day I moved into my little mountain home.

The only answer I can give you is that you will just know…

One month before my 20th birthday I packed up a bag of clothes, some CDs, a mountain bike, and $186 cash and left my home in central Iowa for a new life in Colorado. 

Why? Because I could see that I was going nowhere in Iowa. I was bored, becoming lazy, and seeing a future that wasn’t so bright. 

But why Colorado?  The truth is that Colorado is somewhere that I felt free.  At such a young age I hadn’t been to a lot of places but I had been to Colorado many times and I knew I liked it better there than anywhere else I’d visited.

My family had spent many week long summer vacations in the Centennial State and for me even at a young age it felt like home.  I have many memories of the Royal Gorge, Pikes Peak, Summit County, and Estes Park.  I always wondered why if my parents both worked so hard all year why they couldn’t stop and enjoy the fun things in life including their own son for longer than one full week every summer.

At about the age of eight we spent a week in Summit County Colorado in a condo along Lake Dillon.  At the end of the week I asked my mother a serious question.

“Mom, why are we going home to Iowa tomorrow?” I asked as seriously as an 8 year old can.

“Well our vacation is over and its time for us to go home.” She replied honestly.

“But if we like it here so much and have fun every year, why wouldn’t we just stay”

“Well, son, we have a house in Iowa and your dad and I have jobs there”, she said in that sweet way that parents use when they feel like they have to explain to children how the world really works.

“But mom, there are houses here and there are jobs in Colorado too” I replied.

 I was sure that there had to be better things out there for me and my family. For years I wondered why my family didn’t live in the mountains where we loved to visit. It didn’t make any sense to me that we would choose to live somewhere that wasn’t perfect. Sure my family had a house and jobs, but isn’t there more to life than that?

I kept this in my mind for many years and when I was finally making my own decisions I made the move. I knew there was a better life out there for me. This summer will mark my 14th year in Colorado. I have never ever, even for a second regretted this move. In fact it is the best thing I have ever done for myself. I have never regretted following my dreams.

 “Every stone we lay affects the course of the river” Nat Keefe.

I was raised in central Iowa where the education system is very good and work ethic is something that is ingrained into the children.  I attended public schools and always enjoyed school, although mostly for the social interaction and the occasional game of dodge ball.

I was a very good student to have in class.  Actually, I was too shy to get into any real trouble.  But there were always certain things that I wanted to do my own way.  I wasn’t interested in following everything I was told. 

The first run in with authority happened within the first few days of kindergarten.  I had my own way to hold a pencil which was slightly different than the way the teacher was teaching us.  The teacher talked to me many times about how to hold it the ‘right way’.  But I couldn’t figure out why it mattered how I did it as long as I knew how to write and could do it legibly.  Isn’t it possible that there could be more than one way to hold a pencil effectively.  The teacher would have never known I held it any different if she hadn’t been looking over me like a hawk.  When I didn’t easily adapt to the accepted way, I was given a little rubber triangular shaped device that slid onto my pencil which was meant to force me into holding it the ‘right way’. 

This attempt failed miserably on their part as I was still able to hold it my way even with the triangle shaped pencil holder.  To this day, I still hold a pencil my way.  It’s different than most people, but it isn’t wrong. Besides, when was the last time you hand wrote anything important. The teacher could have actually been spending time teaching me something meaningful and important. This was long before No Child Left Behind but these teachers had already taken their eye off the real goal to waste time on making each of us do things the same way. 

Why must the education system start teaching kids at 5 years old that there is only one way to do things?  Where is the individualism?  Where is the desire to be different and express yourself?  Our children are taught from day one to follow the rules and not stand out from the herd.

Even at 5 years old I was focused on a big picture. Actually a picture that was so big I still couldn’t see it yet. I always had respect from my teachers, but I also knew I was smarter than them.  Let’s all stop trying to fit in and making everyone else fit in so we can create some individuality and learn creativity from others. I guarantee we could be a lot further along if we didn’t impede growth by forcing silly rules on our children.

One day my Branch President called me into her office.  She was a very nice but sometimes a stern woman.  She reminded me of some teacher I had had back in junior high or high school.  I had a lot of respect for her and hoped to learn from her so that I could be a Branch President some day.  We talked for a few minutes about how we were trying to become part of the community and that we needed to become more active.  I agreed and was eager to succeed in this new role.

This branch was brand new in a small community located near Durango, CO. The small community was an old ranching community whose big annual event involved running sheep down main street. It was a community full of older people and it was pretty close knit but I was determined to become a success. 

My boss said, “The only service organization in town is the Lions Club, and I’d like to see you attend one of their meetings and maybe join their club”.

I didn’t really now much about the Lions Club but I was up for anything so I said, “No problem when do they meet”.

The next morning she poked her head into my office and said, “I got a call back from the president of the Lions Club.  He said you could come to their meeting on Thursday night.” 

I replied, “No problem”.

Then she started to laugh and said, “He asked what you looked like so he could greet you and I started to say that you were young and he laughed and said ‘he would be the other young guy there’”.

I didn’t understand why she was laughing until I got to the meeting.  Here I was a 28 year old punk who was pretty free spirited and enjoyed being young at heart.  I walked up to the old grayish white building that had cracks in the plaster and nothing but weeds growing in the flower beds.  I slowly walked up the wheel chair ramp and through the door into a room that reminded me of some time long ago. 

The hall was an old building with scratched and dusty wood floors.  The wood paneled walls were covered by felt banners symbolizing some achievement of yesteryear and black and white pictures of past presidents.  Even the most recent years looked like someone had played a practical joke and photo shopped 70’s clothing and cop mustaches on these poor people.  I made my way over to the kitchen where a smiling lady my grandmother’s age gladly dished up some slop that looked like something you would pick up at a truck stop.

I turned and scanned the crowd trying to figure out where I was going to sit.  It looked like I had wandered into the ‘Sunny Acres Retirement Home’.  Everyone in the room was 60 years old or older.  I smiled at a group of Blue Haired beauties and stumbled over an old man’s cane that was lying beside him on the ground.  I settled into a spot.  Introduced myself then listened to a conversation about which members wouldn’t be here tonight because they were in or out of the hospital.

Don’t get me wrong.  The Lions Club does a lot of great things for the community and I do believe it is important to be involved in your community, but a 28 year old with new ideas and beliefs has no business in a small town Lions Club.

After joining the club I tried my best to enjoy it and have fun.  I also showed up early to set up tables and stayed late to help out.  I didn’t want to see any of these old people hurt themselves.  Within a few weeks of joining I was invited to my first funeral in years.  It was clear that I had given up my desire to be young and free and traded it in for a membership at the old folk’s home. 

Is this who I wanted to be?  Is this the future I wanted?  Definitely not, but for some reason I continued with it in the short term thinking that it would help my career.  It was just one more rung in the ladder and for some reason, I was climbing.  The Lion’s Club was just the first of many events that should have been wake up calls.

When I was 21 years old and able to live carefree, I rented a house with a few guys in Silverthorne, CO.  It was a nice house at the back of a subdivision which backed up to open space.  He had three bedrooms, a loft, and a hot tub.  What else could we possibly need? 

To keep the rent affordable we had up to 7 people living in the house at one time.  To make room for everyone, I chose to live in the closet.  I moved all of my possessions into a walk-in closet.  I put a twin sized mattress on the ground and hung all of my clothes up around me.  The couple of boxes of miscellaneous possessions I did own fit on the shelves above the hangers. 

I remember waking up one morning and laying in my closet. I just laid there thinking about my life and what was going on.  I wasn’t down about living in a closet.  In fact, I was very excited about it.  This was all I needed or wanted.  Everything that I needed in this world fit into this one closet.  I thought about all the poor souls who get attached to possessions.  These people have 4 bedroom houses with basements and 3 car garages packed full of stuff that they ‘need’.  Some of these same people pay monthly rent for a storage unit to store even more stuff.  But I had simplified to where everything I needed was within reach, literally. 

Living in a closet sounds really funny and impossible to most people, but I loved it. I worked about 4 hours a day as a maintenance man but got paid a 40 hour per week salary while I snowboarded almost every day and went out and saw live music nearly every night. I was living every day to its fullest. I had no stress.

Somehow over the next ten years I would end up with enough stuff to fill a large home including the basement and garage. Does this stuff make me feel any better? No, but I sure do have a lot more stress in my life.

Looking back, the year living in a closet was one of the best years of my life.  Some would say I had nothing, but I would say I had it all.

The stereotypical question that moms use to test their children is, “If your friend jumped off a bridge would you”.  For me the answer is absolutely, as long as it is going to be fun.

The summer between my junior and senior years in high school I went boating with 3 friends in one of my friend’s dad’s boat.  It was a hot summer day and we were just out cruising the lake having fun and being high school kids.  We sipped a couple of beers, talked about girls, and then started looking for something more exciting.

There is a large bridge over Saylorville Lake, near Des Moines, Iowa, known as the Mile Long Bridge for obvious reasons.  The bridge allows traffic to cross the lake from the east and west.  I knew this bridge very well since I had crossed it many times with my family while traveling to my grandmother’s house.

We started joking about jumping off the bridge.  It was about a 60 foot fall and definitely something that looked like a blast but also very scary.  We drove the boat under the bridge and turned on the fish finder to troll around the area.  We discovered that the water was around 25 feet deep in the middle part of the bridge.  This seemed to be plenty deep for a thrilling jump. 

I started talking a lot of smack about how we had to do it.  I was actually expecting that nobody would call my bluff.  One of my friends said, “Let’s do it”.  The boat driver took us to the edge of the lake and we jumped out and swam to shore. I still wasn’t sure that I wanted to do this but I was expecting the other guy to call it off. 

Soon we had worked our way up the rocky embankment filled with bowling ball sized or larger white rock and we were walking on the road.  As we started walking out on the bridge against traffic I realized that I was actually going to do it.  The cool breeze on the bridge was so refreshing on this hot 90 degree day but the cars zooming past us seemed to be a reminder that we were headed out to somewhere we were not supposed to be.

We reached the middle of the bridge and looked over the edge.  I could barely hear my two friends in the boat screaming and yelling encouragement at us from 60 feet below.  I looked at the cold choppy water and wondered what I had gotten myself into.  My fearless companion at my side could sense the fear that was coming over me.  He said, “Well there is only one way down from here”.  I knew he was right.  Walking a half mile down the bridge then down the loose rock just to reach the freezing cold water would be torturous enough even without the teasing I was sure to get from all three of my friends after my loud mouth had made such a big deal about how we had to do this.

I sat on the railing with my feet dangling over the edge.  I knew it was deep enough and shouldn’t be dangerous as long as I went in straight like a toothpick.  But damn, fear is something else.  As I sat there frozen not knowing what to do, I decided that I was not going to let fear control me.  I didn’t want to be afraid to do things that would be fun and exciting.  I knew that most people would be afraid to ever attempt such a crazy jump, but why?  It wasn’t all that dangerous since we knew there were no rocks and the water was plenty deep.  I decided that the thrill of the jump was worth letting go of my tight grip to safety on the railing of the bridge.

I scooted by butt off the edge and felt a very brief moment of free fall.  With my heart pounding and my body straight as a board I crashed into the cold water.  I’m not sure how deep I went but I remember doing a few strokes trying to swim back to the surface.  When my head finally popped up out of the water I took a huge deep breath and began laughing my ass off.  I did it.  I had concurred fear that day.  I let my worries rest and took a leap of faith.  Not only did I survive, but had enjoyed it very much. 

We had turned this average summer day into a day that none of the four of us would ever forget.  I felt truly alive and had no regrets.

I have thought back to this moment many times in my life. It is very symbolic to me. Many people choose to hang on to that railing and never experience truly living life. Whether your safety rail is a dead end job, an abusive relationship, or anything else that is holding you back from true happiness; take that leap. You will not regret it.

“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the summer of 2002 my wife and I purchased our first home, located outside of Durango, CO. It was a nice home located on one wooded acre in a neighborhood built into the forest. It was everything we ever wanted. We had a nice view and plenty of peace and quiet. This was our American Dream and we were so proud. 

Shortly after we moved into our home a huge wildfire was started near Durango known as the Missionary Ridge Fire.  The fire grew very large due to very dry conditions and the past success of the Smokey the Bear campaign which has loaded the forests with so much fuel.  I didn’t think much about it for the first couple of days because the fire started so far from our home but the fire grew everyday and it got closer and closer.  I started thinking about how our house was surrounded by forest with inches and inches of pine needles covering the forest floor.  So I spent two full days raking the pine needles away from our house.  I hoped this effort would help keep my investment safe.

As the fire grew and spread east it became clear that our neighborhood was at risk.  I sat on the deck watching an eerie red sunset as pieces of ash began falling all around me like snowflakes.  Alone on the deck sitting in a grey fog in an ash storm I suddenly felt a great deal of peace and accepted that there was nothing I could do.  The house would either burn or it wouldn’t.  It was no longer up to me.  The conditions outside of my control had created this and all I could do is worry about keeping me and my family safe.

We got a reverse 911 call giving us 30 minutes to evacuate the neighborhood.  Just thirty minutes?  What about all of my stuff?  My wife and I walked all around the house in a panic looking at our possessions.  There was so much stuff.  But was it truly important?

This was a moment of truth.  I walked room to room trying to decide what we had that we could not live without.  After a few minutes of thinking this was going to be hard I abruptly realized that I didn’t need any of it at all.  All of these possessions were replaceable.  There was almost nothing that really mattered to me or that I couldn’t live without.

My wife and I settled on our wedding album full of pictures of our special day, some of her jewelry, a folder full of important documents such as birth certificates, and our three dogs.  Then my wife pulled open the refrigerator.  Her blue eyes lit up and with a smile on her face she said, “We’ve got two beers left”.  I laughed at her ability to be calm and realistic in this moment of panic.  I said, “Grab ‘em”.

As we wound down the hill towards the bottom of the neighborhood we saw lines of neighbors with truck loads of crap that they couldn’t live without.  One truck pulled out in front of me pulling a speed boat packed full of TVs, elk heads, and miscellaneous possessions like he had just scored a major deal at a yard sale. We got such a kick out of laughing at the things our neighbors couldn’t live without that we nearly forgot a terrible disaster was working its way towards our home. I felt such peace knowing all I needed was my wife, the dogs, some pictures, and a couple of ice cold beers.  

After checking out with the National Guard at the entrance to the neighborhood we hit the state highway and headed to a friends house for safety. Looking in the rear-view mirror I could see the hillside behind my neighborhood burning with orange flames in the dark night.  Later I wondered how I kept it together so well, but I really was at peace with what would happen and I actually felt free. My neighbors could only see what they were going to lose but all I could see was how lucky I was to be free.

“Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose” -Kris Kristofferson from ‘Me and Bobbie McGee’

I walked out of the bank, hopped into my car and drove straight to J.C Penny’s to buy another collared shirt.

The next day I filled out all of my paperwork and was told I could start on Monday. I said “Thank you”, walked out the door and drove straight to J.C. Penny to buy enough shirts to get me through the first week.

It wasn’t until many years later that i read Henry David Thoreau’s book Walden and read the quote “Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes”, I now know exactly what he meant.

Over the next seven years my closet has become full of these ‘nice’ clothes. I have tons of short sleeve and long sleeve dress shirts, dress pants, a suit coat, and a handful of ties. I can’t picture myself wearing any of it. It just isn’t me, but somehow I’ve been wearing these clothes for years five days a week with a smile on my face. I might as well of had a wig and a clown nose because for me this costume was such an odd requirement for what I was required to do.

Many banks allow their employees to dress down on Fridays and wear jeans. As a 33 year old Vice President this is actually quite a dilemma. The jeans that I would wear on a Saturday night are faded and baggy. They don’t scream professional. I do have a pair of jeans that my wife makes fun of. She calls them my ’banker jeans’. She teases me when I wear them and I know she is right. They just aren’t me. They are part of the act.

Thoreau makes a great point. If you have to disguise who you really are to take part in an activity or a job, you are not going to be happy. Life is short. We need to enjoy it and to be who each one of us is as an individual. Follow your dreams and let your freak flag fly.