Buy experiences not stuff.

These past few weeks have been almost overwhelmingly full of work and recovery from work (usually climbing and beer). As you guys may or may not know I'm working at the local rec. center lifeguarding and teaching swim lessons; unfortunately it is more of the former and less of the latter. As a result I'm left with excessive amounts of time to think about oh...just about anything that pops into my head. After several weeks of sitting for about 30 hours a week I've started to think about what I think about. You may be asking yourself right now what the heck is Sam talking about?! Well don't worry, I'm just developing back story in a roundabout fashion and I'm getting to the point now.

I have realized that what I have been thinking about this past month while life guarding has been remarkably similar to what I was thinking about while life guarding a year ago. I have been planning what to do with this next year (I'll try and post up a tentative plan for those of you that are curious). I have been planning on what to spend my recently earned pay checks on and what to spend my upcoming pay checks on. I have been planning what to eat and drink after work. I have been day dreaming about the Creek, Patagonia and Ice climbing (probably more of this than all of those planning things). I have been thinking about how awesome my friends are to tolerate me parking in front of their houses, bum interwebz and a cooking setup and how much I appreciate their generosity.

After mulling over these thoughts I've recently realized that I was feeling pretty amped on buying a new down  sleeping bag, solar panels and batteries for the van, a stereo system, extravagant food, a full gas tank and well the list goes on. Then I began to think, not in terms of cash amounts but amounts of experience. For instance instead of a new sleeping bag when my present one will do just fine I could take a trip to Zion, instead of a ticket to a concert I could spend a week at the Creek. Instead of a full gas tank...well I suppose eventually some of these purchase ideas will come to fruition. However, my take home point is that while I and almost everyone else gets sucked up into the spend spend spend and get more and more stuff I say spend spend spend on experiences that are gratifying, that can be spent with those that you value, that will provide memories, on experiences that will provide rather than consume space, leaving you wanting the next best thing when what you have does just fine. I suppose it's all just a matter of needs v. wants and not getting the two mixed up which is certainly not an original idea.

On that note I'm going to go earn a bottle of whiskey to pass around a campfire with a bunch of friends and strangers. Or maybe it will be a pass to Rifle Mountain Park for this summer.