Reaching Life's Summits

July 2005 was a crushing month in my life. I discovered my wife unresponsive in our bed early one Sunday morning. After my resuscitation efforts failed, I was immediately aware that my life would be forever changed. Sure, my wife had been sick, but never in my wildest imaginations would I have thought a young, vital 39-year-old woman could be taken from life so early. Grief, confusion, even anger dominated my every thought. How would I raise my four daughters? How could I continue to run my company? Could I ever come to feel peace and joy again in my life?

A couple months later, still marred by the events of the summer I decided to join my brother and friend on an early morning summit of Mount Olympus, a key peak along the Wasatch Front Range in Salt Lake City. I believed the climb would be strenuous and demand all my strength and resolve, especially given we planned a near sprint to the summit. Being over ten years, their senior had me questioning if I could pull it off. We left a few hours before the first light so that we could catch the sunrise coming from the eastern side of the mountains, long before the sun filtered into the Salt Lake valley. We made the climb, and as I stood on the summit I had a sense of joy come into my body that had been missing for months leading up to this challenging adventure.

I later came to realize that, for me, life isn’t about standing on glorious summits with gorgeous vistas laid out in view. Life is about tackling the seemingly impossible challenges that come without warning. Some are indescribably difficult, and we likely feel ill-prepared for the breakneck journey ahead requiring navigation of an unexpected rise in the topography. Other challenges may at first seem easier but require far more time than we ever would have imagined, filled with false hilltops, leaving the goal still elusively on the horizon. We all know the saying that Life is About the Journey, and I get that. The journey can lose its meaning though if we don’t keep an eye on the goals we set along the way. It’s good to also celebrate the little summits in our lives. Doing so over the past 13 plus years has made all the difference for me. Find purpose in the struggle, measure growth along the way, and then when you reach the summits, you’ll know that you’ve been changed for the better.