Above all else

Happy New Year!  As I'm sitting here typing, the wife and I are watching a re-run of Pretty Woman on the cable.  Even more than the movie itself, the soundtrack really brings back a lot of memories - anyone else remember Roxette?! According to Wikipedia, the movie was released in 1990. As we stand on the verge of 2015, that means it's been about 25 years since the teenage me sat in the cinema with my classmates and watched that movie.  25 years!  Wow. Those 25 years have been tumultuous.  But they seem to have passed in a flash!  Thankfully, I do have some memorable milestones.  I imagine many people also have similar milestones - you know, graduation, when we get married, when our kids are born, our first jobs, our career breakthroughs, and of course our stumbles, though few of us like to talk about them. But you know, just about everyone has similar milestones.  So what's there to make my life, or yours, special?  I've come to slowly understand that it'

So I just got back from my first ever skiing experience in Niseko, Hokkaido. I was less terrible at it than I thought!  Overall, I have to say that it was pretty cool, swerving and coasting down the slopes in big S-loops, a million powdery snowflakes pattering on our faces, and cotton-draped pine trees swooshing by the side.  And now I know why so many friends and colleagues have been raving about skiing! I remember hearing a sermon once, where the speaker was talking about skiing, and how you have to sort of counter-intuitively lean forward into the slope, rather than lean back, in fear of falling down. The point being made was that, as with skiing, we need to learn to lean forward into life's challenges and tackle them head-on.  Holding back actually increases the chances of wiping out! And when I was on the slopes with the instructor, that's exactly what the instructor said.  Lean forward into your ski boots instead of leaning back.  It's harder than it s