Advice from Chevy Chase.

Manual labor really makes you think. It really does. If ever you need some time to yourself to really think, go strap on your boots, but on your Vietnamese rice patty hat and have at it with the hoe and rake. There's nothing else like it. Sometimes you spend too much time thinking. So maybe I'd say no more than an hour at a time is healthy, not only to prevent skin cancer and inhillation of terrible air pollution (only for those reading from California) but also to prevent you from frying your brain on "think overload" as I call it.
Throughout being home for the summer I have had plenty of opportunities to do some manual labor. I love it. I have the not so welcome nickname of being "the family Mexican" because not only am I called upon when there is a yard project or any job requiring the possibility of being sunburned, but my multi-faceted talents make me a strange fit for almost any job. Where I pick up these skills, my family has no idea, nor will they probably ever.
Off and on over the past two weeks the rake and I have become familiar again. As I gripped the faded fiberglass in my hands I found myself pondering life's quandaries that are befalling me or soon will. In this process of auto-tonic thought, I said to myself, "You know, I would be totally happy doing manual labor the rest of my life, just think about it. I could lay tile, I could drywall, heck I could even do brush removal, and I would be good at it!" I sat down on the steps in the back of my family's property leading up the hill. I sat there for a good 15 minutes pondering what i had just said to myself. "Yeah." I said, "I could do this, it would be so easy, I feel comfortable doing this. I feel like this would be easy. I can keep to myself, Its a low stress, slow paced job. I dont have to report to anyone. I dont have to be responsible for anything really other than doing what I already know Im good at, THERE IS ZERO CHANCE OF FAILURE..."
the words "zero chance of failure" hung in the air like a scream in a canyon. suddenly, it hit me...the advice from Chevy Chase.
Summer of 2009 I took a class in entrepreneurship from a man by the name of Mark Nygren. Mark was a business teacher at Brigham Young University-Idaho that bore a striking resemblance to Chevy Chase, I mean imagine an older, unbotoxed, a little more slumped over Chevy Chase, and there you have it...Mark Nygren. the parallel was so powerful, i couldnt get it out of my head the whole semester. What was even more powerful was the lecture he gave the first day of class which unlike his appearance, HAD been forgotten until this very day. After giving us his background he showed us a video on YouTube of him skydiving, telling us it was the most exhilarating experience of his life, then he told us to stand up. "What do you see?" he said as 30 students looked around pretty confused. "Nothing" one student said. "Well, he said, I would hardly classify your fellow students as 'nothing,' nice try but no. Anyone?" He asked, as all the students looking too sheepish to answer now. "Six inches in front of your face..." he began, "Now do you see it?" Still nothing. "six inches in front of your face is where your comfort zone ends, so whats on the other side of it? You see, where that very pitiful zone ends, your growth zone begins. The longer you stay in the growth zone, the more fulfilling your life will be, but it wont come without extreme discomfort, with out itching and longing to be back in the comfort zone. You see the growth zone can be very easily thought of as ones hell, but its not. Its where your life is, its where you will find your wife, your kids, a fulfilling career, everything you've ever wanted in life is outside those 6 inches!! Now sure if you want to stick your nose in a two square foot cubicle and punch numbers your whole life, by all means, please stay in your measly little bubble. But there's no room for you in this class. We stay in the comfort zone because it's easy, because there's almost ZERO chance of failure." There it was. It hung in the air again, like a scream in a canyon. "Zero chance of failure."
Truth be told, I don't want to be Manuel the Manual laborer my whole life. I want to live! I want to be part of something big! I want to change life's! I want to to be a household name! I want to be able to make enough money that my family will never need, and maybe never even want. I want to be a good husband who is there for my wife. I want to be at my kids football games and dance recitals (hopefully those will be strictly boys and girls respectively, haha) I want to be successful. I want to be great at business. I don't want to be holding a rake and a hoe my whole life, installing sod in some guys back yard as a career. But sometimes we fear to much what we can become and the process that its going to take to get us there. I fear the things that will most often save me, bless me and soothe me. I fear the work, I fear the experience, I fear being too long in the meat grinder of the growth zone. These experiences can be a class we don't feel comfortable in for whatever reason, it could be a new job or internship, it could be marriage, it could be moving into a new apartment or a new ward or town, it could be for some, a new calling like relief society president or seminary teacher or deacons quorum advisor, it could be just something you face in the lonely foxholes of the heart. So, now I stand, facing the dawn of my tomorrows. Will I fear my decisions? Or my new, different experiences that will soon come my way? or will i drop the rake, and walk resolutely with an attitude of redemption and power towards them, ready to come what may and love it, realizing it will make me a better man. I will have to remember the advice from Chevy Chase, There's just no room in this life for that measly little six inches.