07.14.10
How to be an Ape-Like Success
- Image via Wikipedia
This week’s Comedy Around the World goes to Lake Placid, New York. Home of the mighty Adirondacks. Also home of my first stint at “real” hiking. I thought, “I can do this. I’ve finished eleven full-length 26.2 mile marathons. Alive. This hiking stuff is merely walking through the woods.”
Was I ever wrong!
Not only was the hike humid, strenuous, and difficult, it was endless. That’s because it wasn’t what I’d expected.
Our minds get like that sometimes, too.
We expect a certain outcome. We prepare for that. We think we know it all. And so—we get surprised. By our inadequacies. By our lack of knowledge. And then we berate ourselves. Or take it out on someone else.
That scene is almost as excruciating as the hike I did.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Not even on the mountain. Just apply what I did to survive the 3-hour hike.
I wasn’t strolling nicely through the woods in my borrowed camel-back waterer and hiking shorts. No! I was doing whatever it took to get up and back down the mountaintop.
Climbing ape-like over the steep rocky banks. Hand, foot, leg crawl-over, and another hand. Hoping I wouldn’t slip. Slipping anyway. Breaking to rest the ankle I had sprained 5 days earlier. Re-wrapping my sprained ankle. Scratching the bug-bites on my armpit.
I tell you, it wasn’t pretty.
And that’s where we need to start.
1. Don’t take yourself too seriously! Don’t aim for an image of perfection. That type of mindset limits what you WILL do. What you are willing to go through. And that necessarily limits your possible (positive) outcomes.
2. Be willing to try a new way. My idea of hiking has always been upright, human-like. Never did I think I would have to resort to crawling on hands and knees. But new circumstances require us to think in new ways. Be ready.
3. Look out. Be forward-looking, but not in a controlling way. Stay flexible. On your toes. Ready to accommodate anything that comes your way. We can only do this when we are stress-free, not putting on airs.
Think ahead to how your style of humor will affect people. Which branch will I grab next to pull myself up the steep bank? Is that rock stable enough for my weaker ankle? Can I step on the log over the mud, or should I try the grassy side of the trail?
We’ll climb many mountains in our lifetime. By keeping alert, flexible, and having FUN we’ll get to the top. And back again.
