sometimes when we grow and we learn knew things we have to let old things go... old ways of thinking, of living, of dealing and of being ourselves. sometimes it seems like such a big mountain to climb or such a high bar... the expectations of others and of our own growth seems to loom in the distance like a mountain you need a sherpa to get up. there are times where i'm a few hours into the hike and i'm simply too tired to go any further, there are times where i'm too spent to do anything but hang out at base camp and wait for the weather to clear. there are times where i think of firing the whole team i've brought to this point with me, there are times where i panic i'll wake up and the team will have left me. the thing is about climbing mountains - real or metaphoric mountains is that you have to be at the top of your game. there is no room for error or for silly mistakes. you have gear, you can always get more gear, you have a map, you can always get a better map, you have will power and you can always steel those reserves of will when you become afraid to continue.
i find that at the point i'm at in my personal climb is a difficult one. i'm pretty far from the top and i'm really fucking far from the bottom. i've lost people along the way and i've let some turn back. i've had to assess if this is really the mountain i want to climb and if i'm really sure that all the decisions i've made up to this point are sound ones. i find that if i make a mistake at this point the consequences are dire and i am the one responsible for those injuries and deaths (mostly metaphoric deaths... some very literal injuries). some days i really don't know up from down or north from south and i don't have the confidence to just make a decision and deal with the outcome.
overall it's a work in progress. my hope is that in my lifetime i'll get to the top and be able to look down at everything the world has to show me and all the base camps along the way (i've left baggage at each one as a marker). my hope is that my mistakes and miscalculations became so few that it's more great days than bad ones and that i am able to earn the respect and love of the people i've chosen to take the journey with.
in the meantime i'm bunkered down at the latest base camp reevaluating and taking deep breaths from an oxygen tank. luckily i have emerson with me to sustain this rest.
"There will be an agreement in whatever variety of actions, so they be each honest and natural in their hour. For of one will, the actions will be harmonious, however unlike they seem. These varieties are lost sight of at a little distance, at a little height of thought. One tendency unites them all. The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency. Your genuine action will explain itself and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. Act singly, and what you have already done singly will justify you now. Greatness appeals to the future. If I can be firm enough to-day to do right and scorn eyes, I must have done so much right before as to defend me now. Be it how it will, do right now. Always scorn appearances and you always may. The force of character is cumulative. All the foregone days of virtue work their health into this" - Emerson. Self-Reliance.
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