You know you are true ski junkie when you replace your
daily social media of Facebook and Pintrest with website like skinet.com or the
ski episode channel on vimeo. The other day I was doing my daily browsing of
ski media and came across a article off of skinet.com called,“Stuff We Like: Flyin’
Ryan” by Berne Body. This story was written back in 2012 about Ryan Hawks a year after
he sustained life-ending injuries at the Freeride World Tour Competition at
Kirkwood Resort in California. The article discusses how his family found after
his death a list of his core life principles on his computer that Ryan aimed to
live by and how they turned that list into a working non-profit called: Flyin Ryan Hawks Foundation.
The
foundation provides “adventure scholarships to
deserving adventurers who are: passionate about their pursuit, represent the
principles for which Ryan was widely known and admired, and financially
disadvantaged.” As I clicked link after
link on the website I was more and more captivated by the mission of this
organization because I will admit it is hard for me to defend the idea of
giving scholarship money to young people who want to adventure when there are
millions of children who cant afford to go to college.
This perspective changed when I read through Ryan’s 14 core life principles:
Live
every day, all day
Never
stop exploring life
Never
lose my adventuresome attitude
Be the
best friend I can be
Be the
best brother, son, uncle I can
Look
out for others
Look
out for myself
Look
out for our surroundings
Play
like I’m thirteen
Be
self-sufficient
Don’t
be afraid to ask for help
Work
hard
Live
easy
Live simply
These principles are so basic but yet so insightful.
These qualities also truly reflect a skier. When you dedicate your entire
career and life to a sport like skiing, it is unlike any other sport because
these athletes have to posses an ability to really push themselves physically,
be comfortable directly interacting in the natural environment. The audience
of this sport is very small beside coverage on winter Olympics and X-games, you have to have a true passion to continue to dedicate your life without out
much payment and recognition. This sport is also very individual, every success
or lose is on your sole performance which creates a sisterhood and brotherhood
between people because only those who put in those hours with you. They can testify to your true talent. Ryan managed
to articulate the ideologies of skiing, which are hard to understand if you
don’t spend the day after day battling the elements.
As someone who grew up in a community that placed high
value on adventure, breaking the norm I can see how important a foundation like
this is. The idea of waiting on college possibly and continuing to ski in hopes
of that Olympic gold medal or hiking the Andes in Peru instead of working on a
career is extremely hard to imagine. I never considered not going directly to
college, that is what I was taught and that is what I wanted. I think that
college is in valuable but I can appreciate that for some people that may not
be the path for them and the foundation can provide the guidance and aid for
them to take a healthy and successful path for those who are true adventurers
at heart.
I sat down and thought about what would be some of my
core principles would be and decide to create a list of five.
-Connect to nature
-Appreciate the quiet moments
-Be charged with passion
-Dedicate yourself completely
-Keep exploring
Creating this list of five I found how enlightening it is
to really sit down and think about what doctrines you think/want to live by. It
forced me to think about what I was doing with my life now and what I would
have done if I choose to go on a grand adventure like Ryan and his recipients
did. I would not change anything but I realized that my time for a grand
adventure has not been lost, I should aim to make my entire life a grand
adventure. Why does a adventure have to only be exploring the far depths of the
world, college is a adventure just a different one. Flyin Ryan Hawks Foundation maybe provide for the
most perilous adventure but I think in end Ryan wanted to instill in others the
importance of going beyond the line you set for yourself in what your pursue,
you dream, how you treat yourself and others.
Flyin Ryan Hawk Foundation
website: http://www.flyinryanhawks.org/
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