Keep climbing.

Imagine that you have set yourself a goal. A very difficult one. For example... climbing a mountain. A mountain that has never been climbed before, because of its danger and risk. Ok, your life has a meaning: climbing the mountain. That is great.
Now imagine you're at the peak of the mountain. You have reached your goal. Finished. You feel incredibly good and accomplished. You think that this is the happiest moment of your life. But... what now? Your life is meaningless, again. And someone comes and advices you to keep climbing. You would probably ask him how you can do it because there is no more slopes to climb, remember that you are at the peak, at the top. Well, that is the point of my post today.

Last year by these days I was taking part in an endurance challenge, a marathon among one of the most beautiful places in my country: The Andes. The competition was basically about resisting the adversities of the mountain and reach 10 km running. Those were not as hard as the 50 km of challenge that my dad took but I was not really trained to complete the path tirelessly and halfway through the race I felt completely bleak. Furthermore, the weather deteriorated significantly minutes before the start. I thought I would not be able to finish. Then I thought about giving up: nobody would notice that and everything would go on without alarums and excursions.
But then I realized why I was there, running, trying to improve myself. I was there because I had wanted. Nobody had forced me, it had been just me. So, I decided to continue, at my own pace, focused mind and clear objectives. I get my mind out of any thinking and I found that if I intended easy targets (like reach the nearby trees I had in front of me), the way became lighter and my mind was filled with positive energy. Gently, the tiredness began to disappear and some minutes later, almost without realizing that, I was crossing the finish line (you can see the photo of the glorious moment). I felt as full as you at the peak of the mountain.

It was not until now that I realized that this kind of challenges has a particular similarity with life in general. All the people have a goal to reach, or at least that is what they think. And all of them have had a problem in the middle of the race that have made them review the situation and rethink the goals. But the problems arise when they think they have achieved their purposes. When they think they are in the peak of their mountains. That is when they feel without motivations. And that is the moment to leave everything behind. Only when we empty our hands we are able to get more things. Only when we go down to the bottom we can climb the hill again. And now I know I want that for my life. A month ago I left an incredible life in my country. I left wonderful people and a place in the community. I left everything to come here with empty hands. And you don't know how grateful I am now.

I can see my life as a highway, and my goals as the cities on it. I have goals they are close and I know I can reach them easily. But I know there are also thousands others. There are cities a bit away from the highway, and rough roads to reach them. But all the big cities are connected each other. And I can travel in any way, because I am sure that I will find cities (goals) everywhere. And I can go back and go forward many times I desire. And I could be talking about this metaphor all night long, but I think you understood the sense. We are used to live our lives towards achieving our objectives. And that blinds us to realize that in fact the important thing is the process and not the result. So, I will keep climbing. Even when I am in the top of the mountain and there is no more place to climb. And that can happen just because I'll never run out of mountains to climb, I'll never run out of cities to arrive.