Life is only just one mountain to many people.
I have to get higher sales then the last quarter.
We have to aim for better growth of the company!
I have to be charming, smooth to leave a good impression on my boss.
We climb it, aiming higher and higher. The end goal but a distant hazy idea (possibly retirement and lying by a sunny beach.) The mountain shows us that there is only one path we can take, up. So we strap on our boots and gloves and tenuously, painfully, slowly ascend.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with that! A life of wealth and financial stability is a noble goal.
The problem is that the mountain metaphor destroys all other possibilities in life. The alluring peak blinds us to the rest of the vast options offered. Life is more than just this one single Mountain.
A metaphor more preferable is the desert.
An endless expanse of land with no direction. Free for you to wander. You start out lost, but try to make your own path, walking at times towards the east, and at times towards the north.
Along the way, you will meet people, maybe some are travelers journeying in search for treasure. You may follow them, or continue to wander.
You may be bitten by a scorpion, or encounter a sandstorm, but you recover or weather it out, learning new experiences.
Along your wandering travels, you may find a beautiful oasis thus settling down.
You may find many different mountains, and every time you find one, you may choose to scale it, or leave it.
Life is actually an endless desert, full of decisions, each with a different outcome. The best part is there is no absolute correct solution, maybe only a better or worse result.
Nevertheless, so many people climbing the Mountain believe that up is the only way to go, thus, with no other paths to choose from, they are convinced it is the one true right road by default.
This limiting factor causes slipping and falling to be seen as disgraceful, and a setback. Some descend all the way to the bottom and then glanced up at where they used to be in despair. Unable to muster the energy to climb again, therefore became stuck in limbo, never to move from that spot again.
Their eyes are so fixated on the Mountain Peak that they forgot to look around them. An endless desert spreads out in front of them. New mountains await to be discovered, new oasis await to be found, new treasures await to be unearth.
Often we hear stories about persistence and never giving up. Those are great traits. Those are the people that fell, dust themselves up and started the audacious slough uphill again.
But for those that are unable to climb back up, a pitying condescending tone is used to described them with sentences such as:
He didn't have what it took
She was to soft
He gave up way to early
If I can do it, they should be able too
Followed by a sigh and a shake of a head.
But life isn’t all about that particular moutain only. Those that choose not to ascend again may not automatically be losers. They may prefer to began wandering the endless desert. Losing the climb but in the process, gaining freedom to start over.
Everybody’s meaning of success is different. So why should everybody climb the same moutain?
Perhaps in the desert will they truly find what matters to them in this life.
