Man can climb the highest summits, but he cannot dwell there long (Shaw)

Sometimes, the most freeing thing in life is accomplishing your first big goal.

Yesterday, I did something that I often wondered would ever happen – I sent out m very first copy of Crossing the Gate for consideration. 303 pages. Over 98,000 words. How amazing. Something I started almost seven years ago coming to fruition now. I’ve never been so excited but so calm in my life.

I’ve been avoiding writing about this for the last few days. It’s so much easier to just bounce around in my head. After all, I did what I thought at times was undoable. I submitted a manuscript. It still feels unreal to say. I am so calm and yet, so excited. It’s like … I’ve stepped onto a path and I can see the rocky, snow-covered mountains before me and I know that I still have to climb them, but what’s come home for me is the understanding that I’m going to be climbing those mountains the rest of my life. Whether it’s through writing or love or life, those mountains aren’t going away and every time I take the challenge to climb one of them, I am only going to find new ones along the path. There are places to take refuge, of course, and people along the path to help me. Some people who will be here forever and others I have not yet met.

I think it’s easy to fall into a sense of contentment. We achieve one thing, that ONE BIG THING and think then that it’s easy from that point on. And, to a point, that’s correct. See, once we’ve crawled over that huge rock and survived the harsh conditions, we know how to get over that rock and are more sure of our footing. Yet, from that first goal, there’s only more hard work in the way. It’s so easy to find contentment and find a comfortable place to curl up and be happy with what we have.

It’s a mindset I no longer understand. At one time, I did. I understood the need for a life that was full of joy and laughter and truest joy in what was before me. But now, I have climbed over that first mountain. I have finished my first manuscript and not only finished it but submitted it. It is no longer in my possession but the possession of the universe. And now, looking forward, seeing the future, seeing those mountains, I want to explore. I want to see what lies on the other side. What rewards will come with scaling those frightening peaks. Peaks not only of professional joys, but personal ones as well. Peaks that taunt me. That will not let me go to bed content. Oh, I can embrace what I have and I do, I do. But more than that, my dreams are full of the next mountain.

And perhaps, then, that’s the meaning of life. Silly in its simplicity, perhaps, but that man in our mindset – the guru on the mountaintop with the answers – what he is telling us is to understand the mountains before us. We won’t scale every one. Some we will turn back. Some will harm us. Some will leave us with scars. Some will possibly even break us. But the point is to never stop looking to the top of the mountain … or the next one.