Are You Living It?

4,000 miles in 11 days. 

There were two days of house hunting in San Francisco, where my wife will be starting school at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in July.  (I’m very proud of her!).  Then two days in Seattle with renowned web guru, Josh Mather, planning the next phase of Are You Living It?  Back down to California to meet partner Joe Hiss for three days of Live Your Passion Gear sales calls along the I-80 corridor near Sacramento.  And finally two days of strategy sessions and meeting with manufacturers near San Francisco, with company founder Shawn Raley.

Plus all the driving. 

Honestly, this is easily the most fun business I’ve ever been a part of.  The vision we have for sharing a philosophy that could actually change people’s lives for the better is exciting and motivating.  Watching it crystallise in reality, step by step, is already greatly fulfilling.  When you notice a retail buyer’s face light up when she sees our unique take on athletic designs and our obvious commitment to eco-friendly manufacturing, it makes you feel like you might be at the beginning something special.

I departed the Bay Area last Friday afternoon, aiming for home in Durango, Colorado.  I made it as far as Wells, Nevada, a remote trucker oasis in the middle of nowhere.  I hardly even remember the $40 motel room I crashed in, because I was only there for five hours, and a comatose five hours at that.  When I woke up at 4:45 I decided I would rather be on the road, heading home, than feeling the threadbare comforter against my face.

That first hour of driving on the second day was when I first realized how tired I was.  The 20 oz. coffee I poured myself at the truck stop left me with a near-nauseated, otherworldly feeling, rather than reviving me and steeling me for the day.  The thought of ten hours of driving ahead of me weighed on my like a ton of bricks.

An hour later I could tell the sun was about to spill over the top of the spinal ridge of mountains in front of me.  I fumbled around in the center console, looking for my sunglasses, hoping to find them before the solar explosion filled the desolate Nevada high desert around me and hid the road from my tired eyes. 

In my searching I caught a peripheral glimpse of the moon setting behind me.  I stopped looking for the sunglasses and nearly veered off the road; I was fixated on the sublime scene that I hadn’t even noticed for sake of the highway ahead.

I pulled over and stepped out of my truck, into the still-freezing air.  I walked around and leaned into the passenger side door.  I breathed in deeply and tried to soak it all in. 

You can’t explain the connection between physical beauty like the setting moon in pre-dawn Nevada and a feeling of comfort and satisfaction about your own human existence.  You can’t find words to communicate why such a private viewing of something that happens every day can make you forget your fatigue and focus on how great it is to be alive.  I won’t try.  But it’s a great and wonderful part of being a human in this elemental world–a world that existed long before we thought to start clothing companies or build websites. 

If we stop for a moment and watch the physical world as it moves around us, it can bestow us with the gifts of meaning and perspective.

By James Schaffer