The Mountain

Sometimes I think of my life’s mission in terms of a long climb up a mountain, something like Mt McKinley. From the ground, the peak looks impossible. Nobody gets up there in a day. It’s step-by-step, slow, painful, and costly. And as you climb, the terrain turns against you. The slope gets steeper. Your footing gets sketchier. The air thins out and burns your lungs. The wind comes in sideways and tries to knock you off the face of the mountain.

Along the way, there are base camps, places with real beauty. The view from those camps can stop you in your tracks. You look around and think, I never imagined I’d get this far. And that’s the temptation: it’s comfortable enough. It’s good enough. You could settle. Plenty do.

But maybe something in you won’t let you stay. Maybe you were born with the itch to keep climbing.

Then the next truth hits you: the people who started with you may not share that itch. They may decide a certain camp is as high as they’ll go. And now you have to face the question you’ve been avoiding. Was this a climb you were committed to doing side-by-side, no matter how far you could’ve gone on your own? If so, you’re bound by their ceiling. You stop where they stop. And sometimes that’s fine, maybe that’s exactly what you agreed to.

But if you never made that deal, if the plan was to travel as companions until your paths naturally diverged, then up you go. You leave the camp, keep climbing, and watch your group thin out. The higher you go, the fewer remain.

Near the summit, the view is staggering, clouds or no clouds. But it’s also quiet. And lonely. And harder than anything behind you. And you can’t help asking yourself: Would it have been better to stay at one of those camps with the people I started with?

Maybe. Maybe not.

But there’s a cost to the climb, and the wise take stock of it as they go.

Painting: Sydney Laurence