I am currently reading a book called Epic, it is a collection of short stories about adventure and survival at some of the world most treacherous peaks.
Some of these stories are touching and make you wonder what on earth these people were trying to prove by going to some of the coldest and most inhabitable places on earth.
However, the more stories I read in spite of my own reservations about the wisdom of these missions the more I find myself drawn to the men and women in these stories, simply because of their ability to defy danger and to look at risk and take it on without missing a heartbeat.
I don’t know if you like mountain climbing or not but if you were to read this book, what you would probably find most interesting is the level of resolve that each climber has to succeed in mission that is fraught with danger.
Very often in their adventures the narrators tell of a point where they had to leave the security of their tent or their base camp to further scale the mountain.
They tell of a point in the adventure where it was safe to turn back or to stay still but yet they pressed on to achieve their target which was get to the top of the mountain.
In some extreme cases these climbers watched their climbing buddies die from exposure to the elements or from tragic accidents such as avalanches. Yet they kept moving forward.
When I read this I could not help but think about how in life sometimes we are confronted with an opportunity to give up and how sometimes it is so much more comfortable and safe to stay where you are.
I thought about the number of times in my own life where I have stalled progress because further progress came at a price that I was too scared to pay. I asked myself what if I fail, what if I don’t make it, what if . . . what if . . . what if . . . until the what if got the better part of me.
I know that you too have probably been in the same situation where upon weighing your options it was tempting to turn back or to not take one more step.
May be you never took a step and that’s how come you are where you are today. May be you took half-hearted steps, to which if you did then I am tempted to ask you what the point is of taking half-hearted steps. Why not take a full and confident step?
It is often said that if you take confident steps towards your goals, mighty force begin to aid you in the achievement of your goals. So where do you want to go?
Our adventurers had their mountains to climb and fears to conquer. Those are mountains they picked for themselves to climb or to die trying. What mountains have you picked for yourself to climb as your own?
What goals, aspirations, dreams and hopes do you want to realize within your lifetime?
Do you realize that for as long as you don’t have goals to work towards you will never be able to fulfill your potential? Do you realize that in the absence of goals you are going to drift from day to day trying to make it to the end of the day?
When you have a goal or a group of goals, making it to the end of the day seizes to be good enough, because now you demand tangible results that must be exchanged for the day.
Sir Edmund Hillary after summiting Mount Everest is known to have commented that, “it is not the mountain that we conquer but ourselves.”
Thereby acknowledging that our greatest enemy is not out there somewhere but rather from within. His comment suggests that in every one of us there is both an ally and an enemy.
The question is of the two voices that reside within you which one do you spend most of your time listening to. Do you listen to the voice of defeat, self doubt, uncertainty and fear? Or do you listen to the voice of victory, courage and confidence?
Each one of us has our own mountains to climb and peaks to scale, whether these mountains are of your own choosing or not is not the point.
The point is that life will choose mountains for you to climb if you do not make it your business to choose the mountains you wish to climb for yourself. So if you are going to climb mountains why not climb the ones that you have picked for yourself?
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