Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 267 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

9 Lessons from the Mountains

Thank you for joining us for our 7 days a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 267 of our trek, and yesterday we explored 7 activities which we should all incorporate into our lives. Today we are going to discover 9 lessons learned from hiking the mountains. If you miss any of our Wisdom-Trek episodes, please go to Wisdom-Trek.com to listen to them and read the daily journal.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. On Sunday, we went to church and dinner afterward with Dad in Cambridge, Ohio. It is always great to spend time with him worshipping God and visiting. It was extra special for Dad this time since we had Kip with us. It is a blessing for all of us that the great-grandchildren are able to know and spend time with Dad.

On Sunday afternoon, we did have some work to complete and additional planning for some of our clients, which are negatively impacted by low energy prices.

I was also able to do some final cleaning of the woodwork in the library in preparation of coating it with polyurethane. It will certainly look great when we are finished.

Each day of life is an opportunity to learn if we are receptive to its lessons. As we head out on the trail for today on our trek up the mountain of life we will learn…

9 Lessons from the Mountains

Let’s imagine in our minds that we have just arrived in Seattle, Washington, in preparation for an expedition of mountain climbing. Set behind the Seattle skyline, standing elegantly at 14,411 feet is Mount Rainer, which can humble even the most experienced climbers. Our guide for our expedition has promised us an unforgettable adventure on Mount Rainer. We first hike to Camp Muir, the main base camp at 10,080 feet. From there we start the difficult part of the hike to the summit of Mount Rainer.

The lessons from this experience are extremely relevant to our everyday life.  Here are several key takeaways.

Preparation can mean life or death.

If you were to actually take this trek, your journey would start long before your boots hit the dirt with careful consideration of every foreseeable scenario. As with your life plan, you want to have a plan for the various scenarios that you may encounter. Don't just plan for the best case scenario. Plan for everything that could go wrong too. The moment you're forced into survival situations, whether that is financial, health, relational, or otherwise, is not the right time to start developing a plan to get through it. 

Pace yourself.

With all of the adrenaline and excitement of hitting a trailhead, it's common for hikers to push too hard at the beginning and burn out during the climb. As you go through life, you need to keep your emotions in check, pace yourself, and maintain a steady pace. This will allow you to conserve emotional, financial, and spiritual resources that will be needed to tackle the difficult terrains of life as you encounter them.

Just keep moving.

There will be times in mountain climbing and in life when it doesn't seem worth it. No one said it'd be easy. Remember that momentum is important. When you stop on a mountain above snow level, it doesn't take long for the cold to set in. In the same manner, stopping for too long when life’s difficulties set in can make it very difficult to start again. When you're tired, just put one foot in front of the other and keep moving forward.

Take care of yourself.

You will not be able to reach your end goal if you do not take care of yourself.