From a personal standpoint one of the things I love doing is hiking. A hiker is somewhere between a camper and an adventure racer.
One of the great advantages of living in the Atlanta area for ten years is the close proximity to the Appalachian trail in the north Georgia mountains.
My favorite hiking story is about a great one day hike in the Alps. If you start early in the morning you can reach the summit and get back to the car before dark.
About half way up the mountain is this incredibly beautiful rest house where everyone eats a great lunch. The owner of the rest house has noticed an interesting pattern over the years. When everyone reaches the rest house they are all excited about reaching their goal of the summit.
They warm themselves by the fire and about half way through lunch somebody inevitably speaks out what many people are thinking. Ii think I will just stay here while you finish the climb and you can pick me up on the way back down. At that moment everyone must the make decision to stay or go.
For all those who stay the first few hours are incredible. They sit by the fire and tell mountain climbing stories about other great mountain climbers from the past. They may even reminisce about some of their great climbing experiences in the past.
By early afternoon the mood dramatically changes in the room and everyone becomes silent. One by one they make their way over to this huge window in the back of the lodge and they stand there and stare at the summit.
For you see it is at this painful moment that they realize they have settled for second best in their lives.
Someone has well said, “The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.”
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