Life is a mountain. You have heard this before and know there are ups and downs, and also a sense to reach our peak potential, what we want our lives to become. So why bother making the climb?
The Appalachian Mountains were my backyard as a child. And every season, rain, snow, or shine, I would play in the mountains. And being the nerdy engineer that I love to be, I like to envision a plot of what a mountain would look like in the simplest of definitions. Every hike starts at a point A and ends at a point B.
Quite often, people would label what I was doing as too simple. Why bother to go through all that hassle to get from A to B and climb something in between, when there were much quicker ways to get to B?
My answer is simply that I enjoy it. Now in my English class back in school, if I had stated this as an answer on the exam, I probably would have gotten an F and not received the big fat golden star I could hang on my fridge at home. But now, in the real world, I feel like I could answer the questions in my own way as I take on the mountain in life.
So I guess if I were to try to think of the right answer to the question of “Why do what you love to do when it makes no sense to other people?” on the exam, I know what my teacher would grade me on. It would be the answer “To get from A to B as fast as I can.” Or it would be an elaborate open-ended response with the theme of “Hiking is to get to the top to see the views.” Or it would be beautiful words with proper grammar, a Shakespearean scene of how great the top of a mountain is. Or maybe the answer would just be a quick fill-in-the-blank to stay on the trail, get nothing wrong, and earn a perfect 4.0 GPA.
But the problem was, if I got these answers wrong on the exam in the classroom, I was labeled a failure. A big fat F would jeopardize my climb up toward retirement. But now, when I actually climb the mountain in my real world, if don’t get the supposed exact right answers, I never feel like a failure at all. Instead, I feel like a star, and no, not a flaming ball of gas.
So which mountain are you climbing? The traditional song and dance? Or your REALITY of what your life could become?
2 Responses
Skip
Tony, Hope you at doing well. I find myself at the end of the traditional mountain. Finding my passion at this stage of life changes daily. What do you have on finding your passion?
anthonyt
Skip, thanks for checking out the site! I view passion as polishing a piece of grit as an oyster would to make a pearl. There is a constant grind to make something beautiful. This is accomplished by recognizing what you truly need and value in life. The mountain in the book, The Impression of a Good Life: Philosophical Engineering (model to work towards) can be applied at any stage in our lives. I designed it so that it could also incorporate that of what I call the traditional song and dance (get a degree, get a job, get married, and retire). It is through the practice of continually designing a life worth living, that I continually polish my pearl in life. If you want to find out some more, check out the “The Book” page and “Freebies” page for various resources. I recommend Barrett’s assessment test on the “Book” page. It’s free too!