Thursday, October 11, 2012

The Pursuit of Happiness


"Sometimes you forget why you were doing something as you try to sort out how to do it."



This is currently the story of my life. I feel like I've lost touch with what it is I'm trying to achieve. I thought I knew. That's why I moved here - to pursue this dream. But is it even relevant any more? Is it only in the pursuit of a dream that we find clarity to something more substantial than a dream?

Last weekend, I climbed a mountain. And when I say I climbed, I mean I literally scrambled, shimmied, crawled, pulled and lifted my way up a legitimate mountain. (Actually, the name of the mountain was Breakneck Mountain. I only mention this because it may lend some credibility to my story). So, anyways, I'm not much of an outdoorsy person, so that was a huge accomplishment for me. I would say that I would definitely tuck this away to save as a response to one of those moments where you feel that you've failed miserably at life. ("Hey, I may have just totally humiliated myself in front of my boss and ruined my professional reputation, but at least I've climbed a mountain before in my life!") But I don't think that was my first and last mountain. No, I think there will be more mountains in my future. (Not to sound like a fortune cookie).

It's funny because since living in New York City, I've actually become significantly more of an "outdoorsy" person. I crave nature now. As beautiful as the architecture and art and whatever is in the city - nothing, absolutely nothing I've seen in the city so far can compare to the heart-skipping, stomach-dropping, knee-weakening view from the top of Breakneck Mountain. And no accomplishment thus far has felt as good as standing on top of a mountain, looking down at where I started.

And I guess this is where I could draw the obvious comparison of facing a mountain in real life to those pesky "mountains" we face over and over in every day life. But I don't want to. Because there is no comparison, in my opinion. While climbing, scrambling, crawling my way up that mountain, everything that I had left behind for the day back in the city didn't seem so important or relevant anymore. The rush of the challenge was exactly what I needed. Every unsure nook and cranny that I shoved my foot in to heave my way up to reach the edge of a boulder, stimulated a rush of adrenaline and life to my brain and electrocuted my entire body. It was incredible. Upon telling my dad about my adventure, he told me, "You never feel so alive as when you face death."

I now have a new sense of what really and truly matters in reality. I'm less concerned with my social status and bank account, and more concerned with the time I spend doing the things that make me happy. I still don't know what it is I want to do, but I do know that I want to spend more time writing. I want to challenge myself more - physically and mentally and spiritually. I want to spend more time with my family. I want to climb more mountains, because something about sitting on top of a magnificent mountaintop brings clarity, and life just seems to make more sense up there.