It’s good advice, really – we’ve heard it countless times from keynote speakers, read it in business and self-help books, see it highlighted in LinkedIn articles. In fact, if you google that catch phrase, you’ll get over 10 million results! Perhaps one of the reasons this is so often stressed is because it’s anything but self-evident. The past few days on the trail have certainly been a case in point; completely bogged down – literally, with all the mud! – it’s been far too easy to slide into dwelling on the questions “why am I doing this? What am I doing here.” Those queries have been circling my mind on repeat, the answers progressively hard to identify.
And then this morning, I woke up and saw:
What a view! And seeing my mountain there – off in the distance but SO CLEAR! – created a surge of new motivation and energy. Plus, the sun was shining as we went through our morning motions and headed off to cover another 20+ km, bringing us closer to that far-off prize.
The trekking itself was much easier today – still some steep climbs, a huge marsh to navigate with running streams hiding under the tall grass, and the one or other somewhat tricky river crossing – but the trail was better. The afternoon brought another torrential downpour, which was bad enough that we took shelter in a hastily-erected porter tent.
During a break in the rain, we headed out again only to find that our trails had becoming coursing creeks – not enough to deter either the porters with their bare feet or me in my hated-and-much-loved rubber boots. That said, we were quite relieved when the porters caught up to us about 45 minutes after we’d left the shelter. More than once, Lauren wanted to stop and wait, afraid they may have decided to mutiny. It wouldn’t have been the first time that clients wanted to continue pushing on while porters were intent on remaining where they were. So the concern was there; turning up at camp 4 without tents and provisions would clearly constitute a disaster. As in the video, though – it’s a good group, and carry on they did. I passed out Oreos as we walked, and eventually we were setting up our tent in the (again) pouring rain at camp 4. Only one more day until basecamp.
adventuring through life 