Too Easily Pleased
After years of skiing on our gently sloping backyard hill on what were excessively long and presumably antique skis that we had plucked from a yard sale, my brother Matt and I were finally going skiing on a real mountain. Not only that, but we were also renting real skis, with real boots (without the need for bread-bag waterproofing) and getting a lesson from a real pro (probably a seasonally employed high school student).
The lesson took place on the lower half of what appeared to us to be a magnificently tall and steep hill. There was no ski-lift for this hill, so part of our lesson was learning how to side-step our way to the mid-point of the hill. No problem, we had been doing that for years in our backyard. We assumed that this sweat-inducing labor was the necessary price paid for the thrill of racing back down the hill. Our shallow backyard slope required us to feverishly dig our poles into the ground at a wildly escalating pace to ensure we hit our hand-packed jump with enough speed to “catch air.” But now, on this mountain, all we had to do was point the tips down, tuck, and go. What a thrill!
Between runs, the instructor bored us with impractical advice having to do with things such as slowing, turning, and stopping. While he droned on, my eyes would climb to the summit of the hill, then down to meet Matt’s eyes, where we would smile knowingly that we would ascend that mountain the moment the lesson was over. Our instructor had no sooner offered thanks for our attendance than we began our feverish side-stepping dance towards the summit. Then, discarding all techniques that increased friction, we raced to the bottom in a full tuck, wind-tears streaming from our eyes. We repeated the cycle of climbing and racing, over and over and over. It was later, after arriving back at home, that our satisfaction was turned to disappointment when we realized that the “admission tickets” hanging from our jacket zippers were actually lift-tickets granting us access to the lifts that would have effortlessly carried us to wonders unknown.
We had been lulled into accepting that our tiny hill was our best experience. Only later, when we did actually experience the thrill of steep slopes, big jumps, wooded paths, and vast spaces, did we fully appreciate that in our ignorance we were, as C.S. Lewis once said, “far too easily pleased.” It was then that we first appreciated that our instructor’s efforts to teach us skills to slow, turn, and stop were not hindrances, but the very means of ensuring freedom, safety, and joy when we transitioned to the mountain.
Author Marcel Proust wrote, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” One of my greatest joys as a physician has been giving sight to the blind. Not literally, of course, but rather awakening in people an accurate view of themselves, their unique potential in life, and the beauty and wonder of the world around them. Though I have always been eager to support, teach, and encourage, what my patients ultimately did with that vision was up to them. Too many sit content on the lesson-hill, plagued by disbelief, complacency, fear, or pride. Many also anticipate that the inevitable discomfort of sacrifice and discipline will be insurmountable suffering, missing that the discomfort so often amplifies the joy, especially when experienced in community.
I once asked a patient who was lamenting the debility of her obesity, “What would you do this week if you were immediately 100 lbs. lighter?” Her eyes widened and her expression turned serious. Then, with a faintly visible rim of tears forming in her eyes, she smiled and said, “I’d play my son in a game of tennis – and I’d win.” Play I said, go and play.
Go to the mountain, my friends, go to the mountain.
Upon returning to this resort for a family gathering in 2019, I sought out ‘lesson-hill’ and discovered that, contrary to the stored images of my mind, it would more aptly be described as a modest embankment.