The Mountain

Look in the mirror and tell me what you see. Heck better yet tell yourself what you see. Standing before you is the one and only person that can change your life. That change can be either good or bad. It's up to you. I have a feeling you get tired of looking at the same old broken spirit, broken hope, and shattered dream image you see everyday. If that's the case, let's take a little journey together.

There was gentleman that was on the road to success. He had walked so long and so far that he was about to give up. Then all the sudden he noticed a guru up ahead. He approached the elderly wise gentleman and ask him "which way was success". Much to the man's surprise the wise guru said nothing just pointed to the mountain off to the right. With enthusiasm the energetic young man high tailed up the mountain so excited that success was close at hand. After a few minutes of climbing he tripped and tumbled back down the slope. He crawled over to the wise man, who just happened to be watching, and said to him "tell me which way is success". Once again the wise guru pointed over to the mountain. This time the young man was determined to climb faster, higher, and further. Once again he hit a slippery spot on the slope and rolled back down. This time tattered, beaten, broken, and near hopeless, he crawled over to the wise guru. With anger and disappointment he said "sir twice you have pointed to that mountain as the place for success, twice I tried and failed. I admit I am giving up however I would like to know why you kept pointing to the mountain". This time the old guru spoke and said "success is not up the mountain, success is over the mountain".

Those are powerful words if you allow them to sink in. We spend all of our time seeking shortcuts to the dreams we desire. The truth is that anything worth having in life takes many trials and failures before we finally summit the mountain and have a view of the other side. We are taught to give up just before we win. Along the journey we will encounter people that mock us, discourage us, laugh at us, and work diligently to place us back in to the crowd of which we came so as to blend in and not stand out. You just might be one of those people that discourages others.

You may be facing tough decisions in life as it relates to work, health, finances, relationships, ethics, etc. Any myriad of choices we face on a daily basis are fraught with obstacles that place us back at the bottom of the mountain in the midst of the same crowd of which we tried to escape. In short order we soon forget that we have a life to live. The face we now see in the mirror is mere shadow of the person we could have been. But wait, the story does not end there.

The greatest gift we will ever be given in this life is the gift of another day. With that comes the opportunity to climb the mountain again. Each day we will get stronger, wiser, more experienced, and before long we will be standing so far out from the crowd that we will be breathing the freshest air in the world. Our lives will begin to take on new meaning, our purpose will develop into passion and we will start writing the next chapter of our lives instead of it being written by others. Yes, our lives have meaning, yes we deserve to become the greatest version of ourselves possible. Yes, the person to whom can change our lives is the one staring back from the glass. We will no longer be saddled by baggage so heavy that our journey is over before it begins. We are going to cut lose everything that weighs us down. We may slip down the mountain several times, we may get banged up and bruised, but we will not be deterred. The crowd of which we escaped will keep screaming at us that we can't do it, we will fail, we will tumble back and blend in, but the higher we get the less we hear. The closer to the top we will encounter people of hope, people that dream, people that over come, people that love, forgive, share, and encourage. Those are the people that transform lives and you will become on of them.

Remember you do not have to be great to finish but you do have to start to be great. Go, look in that mirror, see the person that can and will change your life. No longer will you be a pawn, a puppet on a string, a voiceless nobody, from now on you will be the guider of your life, the light in your soul, the meaning in your heart. God placed within you every tool you need to climb the mountain. You were born to stand out so quit working so hard to fit in. A new, wonderful, exciting life is waiting for you to show up. Stop looking back at what you lost, look forward at what you stand to gain. Let's get climbing.

peace and love
Dale