For me personally it’s been a tough week. I’ve ridden the emotional roller coaster of debating whether or not to drop Calc. 2 this summer (I’ve decided to stick with it) and fighting my own internal struggle of what I’m going to gain from all of this. After some soul searching, I think I’ve found the answer.
There are different struggles that we all face, sometimes they are fairly unique to our situation in life, other times they’re fairly common. What I’m finding is that these struggles, the climb to the top of a mountain so to speak, are what define us. It doesn’t matter if it is a class or subject matter in school, a relationship, a physical disability, or a personal tragedy - they all can either work against us or make us stronger. In the end, hopefully the latter.
Much like climbing a mountain or taking a road trip to a distant destination, what takes up the bulk of the time is getting there. Such is life. We all have goals - to become a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, or an astronaut. But once you’ve attained the pinnacle of that goal, then what? Sit idly by, basking in your glory? Unlikely. Most are driven to find the next peak or destination and start making their way in that direction.
I can only suspect that once you’ve reached the top and decide to go no farther, you’ve placed a limit on yourself making the only direction you can go from there being down. A fall from grace, perhaps or just slipping into the darkness, fading away.
The celebrity deaths that we’ve witnessed this week are of people who had mixed stories. Michael Jackson, for instance, hit his peak in the mid 1980’s. After that, it was hard for him to outdo himself, so while he was touring doing concerts of his old songs, he became an easy target for child molestation charges, true or false, and in interviews over the last few years became almost delusional about reality (including that the only way to explain his changing appearance was through a series of surgeries.)
An easy way to look at this too, of someone who has stopped climbing, is Uncle Rico from the cult classic Napoleon Dynamite. Uncle Rico, living out of his van in the middle of nowhere Idaho occupies his time reliving his glory days on the high school football team, reliving one moment where if Coach had just sent him out in the last minutes of the game, he would have surely gone into pro football. He even buys a ”time machine” so that he can go back and try to change the course of his life.
Climbing is the journey, and the final summit you reach will ultimately lead to your fate. Make the most of the journey and don’t underestimate its power, because most of your life is likely to be spent climbing, not overlooking the valley below. Focus on the peak ahead, and don’t look back.
Although it might already be too late for some of you History Channel buffs out there who already watched it, the “Nostradamus 2012″ special tonight was just plain goofy. It didn’t really cover anything new and started veering, invariably, off of what’s actually probable for happening in the next three years to evidence based on shaky science at best. Not to mention most of the people being interviewed on the program looked like they were fresh out of a cult-commune from the 1960’s spreading fanatical ideas based on some Helter-Skelter philosophy.