Climbing to the Mountain Top
I don't do too many video links. I consider this more of a writing / image media, and not a substitute for television. But life is full of exceptions, so I wanted to share this one. It is on You-Tube and you can watch it at your leisure.
It seems that as I get older, the one thing I end up having to battle more and more is stress. Stress from work, money issues, politics, general incompetency from all sides. Life is not that simple anymore.
When I was going through my divorce in 1997, the stress level went way past the red zone. During that period of my life, I could actually contemplate what it was like to go postal and see the value in it.
Thankfully, I found a way to releive the stress. It was a mountain. It is still there and it was called Squaw Peak. They renamed it to Piestewa Peak recently and it sits in the middle of Phoenix, Arizona. It is a 1.2 mile hike to the top, and the view from the summit is pretty spectacular.
I hiked that mountain a lot during my divorce. I learned a long time ago, that when you get far away from your troubles and look back at them, they appear relatively small in comparrision to the big picture. The big picture being your life. On top of Squaw Peak, everything below me finally looked in perspective. Small and inconsequential with the only really important thing ontop of the mountain. That was me and my ability to figure out the world around me. I have hiked that mountain a lot since. I need to hike up it again.
For those that can't hike the mountain, watch this video. To say that we are insignificant in the overall scope of things would be an understatement, but the fact that we can understand our place in the vast expanse of the cosmos, is truely astounding.
Wow! I have a post in draft that touches on exactly the same subject. I'll have to get back on it and post it later this week.
ReplyDeleteLotus, good for you for finding a positive way to deal with your troubles/stress or otherwise you maybe blogging from prison considering you were thinking of going postal!
ReplyDeleteI hope this phenomenon of feeling more and more stress as the age grows is individual. I've never feared growing older but this gave me a weird tingle, and not a nice kind of one.
ReplyDeleteThis mountain and your hikes remind a lot of my own stress relieving spot, a certain beach. I can just sit there on top of a sand dune and watch the waves, listen to their sound and let the breeze take all my troubles away.
odd.
ReplyDeleteas I get older (I'll be 34 soon) my life keeps getting easier and easier. I laugh easier and smile easier and stress is well, easy to plow right through.
:P
Earl: Great minds think alike, mine just thinks it sooner.
ReplyDeletePrincess: Sometimes prison seems like a wonderful place, three hot meals and cot, with all the time I want to write.
Passion: I would prefer the deserted beach, there is on in Mexico about 4 hours drive away....but the mountain is only 20 minutes...so it is a no brainer.
Holly: I suppose the stress is from knowing what I want to accomplish, what I can accomplish, and all the people that are preventing me from reaching my goals. (Imagine your engineer husband having to do his job with one eye closed and hopping on one foot ... all the time.)