When setting goals for your life, have you ever considered when you reach the goals to be like reaching the pinnacle on a mountain top? Do you want to get to the top as fast as you can so you can see the view from the highest point? Or do you enjoy the hike up, taking in the scenery along the way? Do you consider accomplishing them all as reaching only the highest peak such as Mt. McKinley? Or do you visualize a whole chain of mountains such as the Appalachians or the Rockies as being the high points of your whole lifetime?
View from Camden, ME mountain
I’ve not been writing much lately as I have been overwhelmed myself with getting into a situations that I have found difficult to navigate by myself. It seems that there are several people that I have crossed paths with that are in similar situations going around and up their mountains. As I try different routes to get around the obstacles before me I find out quickly that the chosen path will not work for me. I’ve been fortunate enough to have people around me offering their words of encouragement or assistance in little ways to keep me from getting completely stuck.
I have to remind myself every now and then that, although it may not look like much progress is being made up my chain of mountains, I am gaining very valuable experience that will make things easier for me if I should ever face these particular challenges again or I will be able to help out someone else in the future by sharing my experiences.
When I consider the range of mountains I have challenged myself to climb in this lifetime I find that I have taken many detours and certainly have taken some trails that others never consider. Taking the unusual routes may have set me up to miss what everyone else got to experience or it may have only delayed my journey for reaching the top of some of the mountains. I do know that I have some interesting stories though and everyone else that went the usual route seems to enjoy the stories of my adventures because I was daring enough to try it and then tell them what they missed.
with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman and filling out some random Facebook Bucket List Questionnaire that someone else made up for you to check off items, I have looked at my own life and the many adventures I’ve been on and the items that I’ve accomplished so far in this life. I recall back to the days in middle school when my classmates and I would create “Slam Books”, a notebook somewhat similar to a Bucket List that asked for answers to a bunch of random questions, and pass them around to fill out until we were caught by our teachers. Rather than check off the tasks I have completed from someone else’s Bucket List, I’ve decided to create my own. Really, who wants to laugh until milk or some other beverage has come out of their nose? I have many other more interesting accomplishments that I’d rather boast about and challenge myself to, and they are less painful or embarrassing.
