First Published Jan 21, 2024.

Reflecting back on 2023, it was a year of exploration.

For me, I can bucketize my years into growth or exploration, recovery, execution or stability.

You might be thinking this a reductionist view on life, or only a small subset. Of course you and I might characterize our experiences differently. That’s perfectly ok. Life is a mashup of major and minor events which shape our thoughts and emotions. It is also the paths leading between these events and the decisions we make along the way. A year can be so similar to the one before and different in so many other ways.

Sometimes there is one prevalent theme to the year. It may take the form of a persistent thought in the back of your head that keeps you awake at night. A recurring question or dilemma that resurfaces in your conversations, maybe in the same way or changing shape each time.

If you’re a dreamer maybe you see it there. I saw three clocks out of sync. One of them was functioning fine and the other two were broken. I had to keep fine tuning them by hand and checking their batteries. At first it made me think about clock skew.

These types of questions, or problems, help shape who we are and who we will become. They are intrinsic to the sum of our lived experiences. That is to say, they are unique and individualized to each and every one of us. Yet sometimes they are similar. We find clarity in discussion, reading, analysis and experimentation. We learn from our experiences and those of others to overcome our hurdles. These are our mountains.

Sometimes a problem is a hill. Or maybe a series of rolling hills. You take a few deep breaths and trek on through. A mountain is a different type of problem. You have to minimize the number of stops because momentum is valuable in a steep climb. An untied shoelace or a loose strap on your pack could cost you your footing. If you encounter a rockfall or boulder field a small sacrifice in momentum to catch your breath or secure yourself is ok if it prevents a broken bone. The key here is details matter.

To go up a mountain you need a combination of grit and preparedness. Sometimes you are not prepared, perhaps by no fault of your own, or maybe through some combination of external and internal locus of control. In either case you find yourself at the base looking up, pensive. Ready or not, if you need to see the top, at some point you will have to find your grit and commit.

With real mountains the trek is usually a loop up and back. This can also be true for the allegorical mountains of our life. Sometimes we climb over, sometimes we go up just to come back down. We may even cross the same mountain multiple times. The summit might be the goal, or it may be all about the climb. For me the journey can be just as rewarding as the destination. I always love a good “lookout hike” or vista personally, but it’s the challenge that makes the reward that much better.

Sure you don’t have to go up, you can go around. Sometimes that is the better path. You can also take it incrementally, make some progress and come back later and eventually work your way up. The important thing is to never be discouraged. We can find great reward in overcoming difficulty and when it is worth it, balance how you can work smarter and harder.

Your success and happiness isn’t guaranteed through overcoming hardship, but malaise and apathy will surely never get you anywhere. If given a choice between doing something and doing nothing, when you do nothing, you are still doing something. Make sure you have an influence on your own choices, don’t let your choices be made for you.

When things get tough, and they eventually will, because that is life, you have a call to make. Do you go around, over and through, or come back later and progress slowly, or avoid it altogether? As you think about your mountains, remember that others around you have mountains of their own. They might be similar to yours, or very different.

Have reassurance and strength in knowing you have a choice on how you exert your will and humanity on the world around you. You may not have asked for it and it might be unfair or maybe it’s exciting. The next step is still up to you. Whether we climb or not, or how we go about it, we all have a choice on the mountains we climb.