Ain’t No Mountain High Enough
To rob my self-esteem
I was huffing and puffing up the side of a southern Utah butte yesterday, my heart pounding in my ears. I stopped to catch my breath when the thought occurred to me to stop and turn back down right there. But I continued. The view from the top would be beautiful and I did not want to be a quitter before I reached my goal. No one but my husband, who hiked along beside me, would ever know that I had given up but I would have to live with knowing that I cratered to my base instinct to go easy on myself.
This morning I was glad that I had pushed myself, climbing over boulders and slipping in the soft red sand, when I read Julia E Hubbel’s latest article on the benefits of staying active as we age. Julia is a role model for fitness, working out at a level that I will never know. But she kicks readers in the butt with her encouragement to at least get out and walk.
“We are crippling ourselves as a nation with convenience, and we further cripple ourselves with pure laziness,” she wrote.
Laziness? The word had a familiar ring. All my life I have been dogged by the fear of appearing lazy, and that fear has led me to keep going, keep trying, like I did yesterday going up the butte.
At my core, I fear that I am lazy, content to sit all day reading, drinking tea and munching on a…
