Are We There Yet?
More lessons I’ve learned while hiking.
False summits, we’ve all had them. You’re so sure you’re finally there, lulled by the comfort of thinking you made it, it’s easy to stop and bask in the sense of completion — but are you there yet?
How much growth is around the corner, down some steep etched out crevasse, or up a steady incline you didn’t even know was there?
I think of when I began my path of becoming a Life Coach. I said things like “I don’t want to change — my life is so good — I just need tiny tweaks, no major growth “ over and over (sorry my darling cohorts). But in reality I was actually at a false summit. I had no idea I would become a Catalyst and, in less than a year, leave the place my private massage therapy practice had been located for over seven years to open a small wellness office. Who, me?! I was happy at the salon, it was safe and comfortable, I was used to my role there and what to expect as far as expenses go. But, due to a drama filled situation I found myself in, I had some time to ponder my dream work space and before I knew it, the dream became a real consideration and then I sprang into action.
Now, I’m working in the exact place I fantasized as perfect. I made it happen. The salon I’d been working at was a lovely false summit and although I had never expected there to be something better and more right for me and for “my why”, it was time to move on, so I did.
Recently, on the big annual hiking trip my husband and I take to northern Arizona, as usual, we arrived with a list of definite hikes we planned to do along with a list of alternates. The official list is full of doozies, too many strenuous hikes for day after day than is wise for two nearly 50 year olds; so we added a couple we had done before that were tough, but not as tough as we anticipated most of the new trails to be. The one we decided to do, in between two really arduous hikes, was Bear Mountain. Our assorted trail guides describe it as: “ Rambo-esque, a big workout, steep and tricky, massive, breathtaking and jaw dropping”. Every one of the books says it will take around 5 hours, it’s challenging and “be sure to bring enough water” (we even read a hiking guide online that mentioned several fatalities on this trail).
Sounds like fun, right? We picked this hike, because we did it once about five years ago, were probably not in as good of shape as we are now and somehow crushed it in 2.5 hours. We figured it’s a good one to squeeze between the “really hard ones”. And so we went, prepared with bellies full of a huge breakfast, plenty of water, layers of wicking hiking clothes, snacks and our best hiking boots. It was difficult — so much more so than we remembered but we plodded on, happy to be enjoying nature and grateful that our bodies could carry us along. When we finally made it to the area we had “summitted” in the past, we noticed instead of the hundreds of cairns scattered about, there were even more cairns that led down a pathway that could take us possibly to the formation just northwest. A new trail? The same one continuing on? All very possible and we intended to find out. From our original “summit” there is a very high and what appears to be impossible to get to peak, so we were unsure where we would end up, yet we kept going.
The path took us down, across and back up several times, bringing us closer and closer until we stopped insisting “we can’t get there from here!”. It was difficult, and we were sore already, not to mention at least an hour past our “summit” we’d crushed years ago. One final and very scary push over a couple slick rock ledges and we could see the ‘END OF TRAIL’ sign. We laughed that we had added at least another 2 hours onto the hike we had thought we’d completed — tricked for all these years by a false summit. You can get here from there. Once we finally made it to the true summit we realized we still had to get back to the trailhead, and to be honest my knees were angry and yelled at me the entire way down, getting back to our car after a grand total of 5 strenuous hiking hours.
This brings me back to life. We all have goals and it feels so good to reach them. Sometimes it takes a long time of grueling work to get there, occasionally without acknowledgement, sometimes we hit them bang-bang-bang right after another and feel like we’re on top of the world! Once we start to hit the objectives we have set for ourselves it’s very easy to sense the need to put the brakes on, to believe enough growth has been accomplished, we’re done — Ta-Da! But like Bear Mountain, we’re not done yet, we can get there from here. All we need to do is keep going, thriving, and growing- step by step by step. Basking in the afterglow of where we’ve paused is lovely, but it isn’t forever. The real summit in life is the ultimate finish line, the eventual ‘end of trail’ sign we’ll all see someday. But until then, we’re given the opportunity to bloom and summit over and over again.
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