“People travel to wonder at the highest of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long course of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.”
~ St. Augustine of Hippo
Is the view from where you are all that you thought it would be?
I dare say, there are a very rare few who could answer this question in the affirmative.
As Thoreau aptly pointed out over a century ago, “men lead lives of quiet desperation.”
To know what it is you truly want, what your heart truly desires, and what it takes to change for the better, is the deepest of all questions. And to seek to understand what it is that will make you the best human being that you can possibly be; full of unspeakable joy and peace, so that when you come to the end of this journey called life, you can look back and say with full confidence, “I have no regrets”, requires an internal peace and quietude not easy to come by. It requires work.
It may mean turning off the television, the radio, the podcasts and audiobooks, Facebook, Twitter and scores of other media input that are constantly bombarding our brains with a barrage of information soup that will surely drown us in possibly good stuff which can keep us from the Great and Best.
How many people do you know, and by “know” I mean really “know” beyond a shadow of a doubt, that are truly at peace and happy with where they are in life?
What are the qualities, habits and characteristics they display that are different from others? Why is it so rare to find someone who fits that description?
Could it be, perhaps that most of us are just too darn lazy and undisciplined to stop and really think; think ‘til it hurts about what is most important to us in life?
We love the metaphors suggested by mountain climbing. We write and sing about it.
I (Brett), have made it a life goal and begun as a hobby, to climb and summit all 54 of Colorado’s Fourteeners. A 14er is a mountain whose height reaches at least fourteen thousand feet above sea level. As you get above timberline, the oxygen gets thinner and thinner, making it hard to breathe and you feel as though your lungs will explode and the muscles in your legs can go no further. On the way to the top I often ask myself, “Why are you doing this?”, but like a woman in childbirth, the pain is soon forgotten for the joy that is laid before her. There is no doubt that the view from the summit is well worth the pain and struggle. But more importantly, it’s good to remember that the virtue lies in the struggle, not in the prize.
And while this sounds challenging, it is often the first quarter mile or so of the hike that I often struggle with the most. It’s about mentally prepping myself and getting the legs stretched and the heart pounding and pumping and the lungs sucking in air that takes some hard work. It feels uncomfortable. It’s downright painful!
Like Newton’s law that says “an object at rest tends to remain at rest unless acted upon by an external force”, so our lazy nature fights and resists the work that precedes change, unless acted upon by the external force of the will. As muscles rip and tear with hard exercise and then grow after a 24 hour period of rest, so our spirit within, the person we actually are inside, fights against the strain of will and stretches and tears a bit in order to grow, leaving room for a mountain-sized heart and bigger vision and dream.
In the first phase of your journey, you will need to get quiet and honest with yourself and stop and really think, perhaps for the first time in your life. This is that first quarter mile. Begin to walk and don’t look back. We promise you, the view from top will be well worth it!
